The Fall of Ylisse
by StoriesShouldBeFun
Summary: When The Skaven of Warhammer Fantasy arrive in the country of Ferox, King Chrom can only watch as his allies are torn apart by the invasion of the Rat-Men. With the aid of the Master Tactician, the Einherjar of heroes past, and the Shepherds, can Ylisse stand strong against the otherworldly foe that threatens to end her existence?
1. The Battle at the Border

The Fall of Ylisse

Prologue:

After the defeat of Grima at the hands of King Chrom of Ylisse and his trusted tactician, Robin, the realm of Ylisse finally found the peace it had bled and suffered greatly for. The Shepherds were not yet disbanded however, as they led the charge clearing out the Risen from their remaining positions in the realm. For this task King Chrom maintained even the former King Gangrel in his service, as well as the dimensionally displaced Yen'Fai and Former emperor Walhart, amongst the various drifters and heroes King Chrom had met along his travels.

Most notably amongst the King's subordinates however, were the many Einherjar that Grandmaster Tactician Robin had insisted on seeking out and summoning. In the span of a mere month, and with the help of the phantoms of the Hero King Marth, the Twins of Magvellian Legend, and even the Radiant Hero himself, the realm of Ylisse had now under its command entire regiments pulled straight out of legend.

Grandmaster Tactician Robin then proceeded to place these scions of legend into key positions around the continent of Ylisse when troubling news arose of a new threat on the horizon. A threat that would have seemed incredulous to anyone who had not recently fought off the living dead: The Giant Rat invasion.

Chapter 1:

The Battle at the Feroxi Border (Part 1)

Commanding Lord(s): The Magvel Twins, Ephraim and Eirika.

The Phantom of Lady Eirika stood guard atop a guard tower in the border fort of the Ylissean town of Seravant. The summoned Eiherjar gazed longingly into the town that stood nestled behind the fort. The sun was setting as she gazed at a traveling merchant train led by a strangely familiar red-haired woman, and she could not help but sigh wistfully as memories of previous battles fought came to her mind. Stronger still came her memories of a similar border town, and visits to a now-forgotten friend tugged firmly at her heart. A single question burned in her mind, "_If all of our allies during our travels were found and recalled, how is it that we could not find HIM?"._

And even then, other, much less benign thoughts burned at her mind. She was still attempting to make sense of the last few weeks, summoning her friends and allies at the behest of strangers, bringing them out of the void for what? More warfare? This was hardly the future that her allies had fought and bled to achieve. However, she was more concerned with what had occurred in the other world, rather than this one, as that question brought much dread to her.

Though she had not mentioned it to anyone else in her army, the men and women who had fought alongside her against the unspeakable horrors that Grado had plagued upon Magvel, memories of how she ended up as an Einherjar in the first place seemed to resurface. Visions of cataclysms that the earthquake that had brought Grado to its knees was a mere herald of. Though she was sure not to bring it up with any of her former companions, or the garrisoned troops at the massive fort, she could not help but notice the day before during training, as Garcia, the dauntless warrior who had torn apart man and demon alike was brought to tears when a lapse of once-forgotten memory flooded him and made him hug his son firmly.

These thoughts came to a close, however, when her brother, or rather the shade of her brother Ephraim, ascended the tower steps and stood alongside her, motioning for an unseen figure to remain in the shadows for the moment.

"Eirika..." said Ephraim, "I know that our predicament is not at all pleasant, brought out of who knows where by a stranger to fight against the undead on his behalf."

Eirika turned to her brother without surprise, as she had heard his steps and had instantly recognized them as his, "But we have faced much worse, have we not brother? I'd much rather be concerned by the reports of the Rat-Men that the Grandmaster is sending our way."

After hearing Eirika say this, Ephraim fell silent. It appeared the weight of command had fallen heavily on him. The Risen had been enough of a challenge even for the Hero Twins, but the reports that had been sent in were all the more concerning.

The Feroxi Army, as powerful as it was, seemed to have been the victim of ill luck, firstly by the war against Valm, the previous year, and now by the Rat-Men hordes that spawned seemingly out of their nation. The kingdom itself was a barren wasteland now. It's leaders were holed up in Ylisse, and their people lived as refugees in border towns such as the one under Ephraim and Eirika's supervision. Though no one wanted to admit it, it was apparent that the next targets for the hordes was Ylisse.

"What troubles me brother, is that we have no idea what it is we fight." said Eirika.

"It troubles me too, that no survivors have come out of Feroxi after the seventh refugee group that got through." said Ephraim solemnly. He spoke the truth, as after the seventh rush of refugees to cross the border, the flow seemed to stop. What was concerning about it, was the fact that their stories about the horrors in Feroxi had grown from mere night-terrors stealing children at night, to entire swarms of vermin overrunning fortifications and armies through sheer weight of numbers. Needless to say, the Feroxi army had been wiped out.

"I did not come here to trouble you, my sister," said Ephraim, chasing away Eirika's worried thoughts. He then gestured at the entrance to the tower's staircase as a familiar figure emerged.

It was Lyon, alive, or as alive as he could be, and well. Eirika embraced him the instant she saw him, and exclaimed, "Lyon!" .

"Eirika!" said Lyon as she let go of her embrace. He then said, "Eirika, I know you may not accept it now, but I would like to ask your forgiveness for my sins. It is too little, and far too late, but the Demon King has now lost his grasp over me, and so I feel I must aid you and your brother in your coming battles."

"Oh, Lyon!" said Ephraim as he embraced the both of them.

Their reunion was cut short, however, as the guard tower that overlooked the border rang out the alarm frantically. This had not been the case even when an entire swarm of Risen had occurred. The fear in the air was palpable.

"I'll rally the troops of Ylisse at the ready!" barked Ephraim, "Eirika, get the men and women of Magvel ready for battle! We're taking everyone in this fight. We cannot underestimate this enemy!".

"Allow me to aid you," said Lyon. "I shall rally the Einherjar of Grado's Gemstones!" he said, referring to his father's generals, Duessel the Obsidian, Selena the Fluorspar, Valter the Moonstone, Glen the Sunstone, Caellach the Tiger Eye, and Riev the Blood Beryl. Until now, they had refused the command of Eirika and Ephraim, it seemed it would take their Lord Lyon to spur them into action.

(End of Part 1)

(Start of Part 2)

Ephraim stood at the Fort's Gate, his horse was behind him, and the men under his command, all 1,500 of them. To his side was Sir Kyle and Sir Forde was on his way back from the front lines to report. His two right hand men had insisted on staying at his side, even as Eirika had gone off with the rest of their companions to oversee the evacuation of the townspeople and refugees into the fort.

"Sir! News from the front lines!" said Sir Forde, "It appears that the Rat-Horde we saw earlier was a mere straggler! The rest are nowhere to be found!"

"And what of the straggler?" asked Ephraim.

"Why he is nearing the front lines as we speak!"

"Good, do not let it through. We do now know what it wan-" Ephraim was interrupted by a ground shaking cry of terror that was shouted by his men. It seemed as if the Rat-Man had burst in a cloud of noxious gas that turned the men in its vicinity to a bloody puddle in instants.

Even as the first screams of the Ylissean men died down, they were soon followed by even stronger screams as the ground before the men in the front lines gave way to reveal a series of massive tunnel entrances that instantly began spewing hordes of rat-men.

Ephraim nearly fell over backwards as he reached for his horse and grasped his spear Reginleaf firmly in his hand. "Hold fast men! The men of Renais ride with you!" he bellowed as the gates of the fort flung open and the Cavaliers, Great Knights, and Paladins of the fort rode with him through the established lanes between soldiers that Grandmaster Robin had planned in their formations.

The standard soldiers on the front lines lasted mere moments against the waves of naked rats that lunged at them and tore them to shreds. A man of Ylisse was lucky if he as much as struck down one of the rats before they devoured him alive. In minutes, the Ylissean lines were compromised. The first three rows of spear-men were shattered and devoured. However, the Knights and Generals of the Ylissean army soon put a stop to the Rat-Men's advance. The claws and teeth of the Rat-Men found no purchase in the armor of Ylisse's men.

Ephraim and his cavalry were soon to reach the front-lines when suddenly a shrill sound filled the air, and Ephraim saw to his horror, that a series of horrible bulbous machines emerged from the earth and began rending asunder the armored Knights and beating the Generals back even as now armored Rat-Men began tearing into the surviving standard soldiers with cruel-looking weapons.

"Milord! What do we do?" bellowed Forde as the cavalry approached the front lines.

"Beat them back under the ground!" rallied Ephraim as he thrust a Javelin at a Ratman that had been pushing the contraption of death. He then began to wield Reginleif, first on horse, and then on foot, as his horse had been struck from beneath him by a Rat-Man with a strange, smoking device on his hand.

Now on foot, Ephraim managed to get a good look at the Ratmen and wished with every fiber of his being that he hadn't. Surely the rats in even the most vile of sewers were more attractive than this! With putrefacted faces, rotting teeth and malicious eyes, it was all that Ephraim could do to fight his urge to vomit and instead thrust Reginleif into the beast's neck.

The battle went badly, as the Cavaliers that he had called into battle had marched straight to their doom before the stranger contraptions the Rats began to deploy. Machines of green fire and lightning and diseases that turned a man to rabid beast.

Eventually though, it seemed as if Ephraim and his men had managed to establish a line that made for a stopping point for their adversary. It was an odd line, as it consisted solely of the most skilled surviving Generals, dismounted Great Knights and Paladins. However, Ephraim began to feel the wear of battle on both his body and his weapons. It was not long before Reginleif broke, snapping as Ephraim thrust it against the eyesocket of an albino Rat-Man. He was now fighting with a short-spear that a bloodied Forde had given him. Both Kyle and Forde were desperately fighting to guard their liege, but their fatigue began to show as well. A short time after giving the short spear to his lord, Forde was struck down as the ground beneath them quacked once again. This time enormous monstrosities arose from the ground. These were easily twice the size of an average man, but rats nevertheless. The stench they gave off made the queasier of the soldiers flinch and leave themselves an opening for the rats before them. Their mere sight and their ascend from the earth straight through the Ylissean lines made the Archers and Snipers from the castle begin to rain down arrows, and the Mages and Sages to begin raining down fire and thunder at the front lines, disregarding their comrades.

Ephraim had nearly been eaten by one of the giant-ratmen, but had been saved by Kyle, who had pushed him out of the trembling ground and had been grabbed by the beast. Ephraim could only watch in horror as his comrade's head was torn off by the monster's teeth and his body swallowed whole.

"RETREAT!" Bellowed Ephraim, as the men around him were mutilated and eaten by the rats. "TO THE FORT, NOW!" cried the lord as he began to run back to the castle gates as the remaining soldiers on the field, once numbering thousands, mere minutes later mere hundreds followed suit with their commander's orders and began to flee into the fort.

This turn of events greatly pleased the Rats, as they eagerly gave chase, striking down the fleeing and lumbering Generals before they could even move a few steps and catching up with the weighed down Great Knights. Though it took the Rat-Ogres a few good wackings to open up the armors for the rats, though the process of waiting for their meal was boring, they found the shrieking men inside quite delicious.

Ephraim was amongst the last of the men to enter the fort's gates. Mere seconds had passed after the gates shut behind him and the rats were already attempting to enter. The archers and mages on the walls did not yield in their volleys of arrows and magic, but did nothing to stem the tide of the approaching vermin horde.

The lord did not waste time catching his breath, as he noticed a particularly deep gash across his ribs. It had penetrated his armor and had gone straight to the bone, with which he was quite concerned as it was slowly turning green. "Get me some clerics! The walls won't hold out against these beasts much longer and we'll need everyone to fight if we hope to survive!" He then began to collapse clutching his chest.

It seemed as if the wound would be the end of him, as minutes later, even as multiple clerics huddled around him, he could feel the wound re-open instantly. This ended however, when he saw a familiar face say to him, "This is dark magic, a heal staff won't help. Allow me." and saw to his joy that his pain had dissipated.

He looked up and saw Lyon, smiling down at him, saying, "I'm glad I could be of help."

Ephraim patted his friend on the back and looked around, seeing that the Fort's surviving defenders consisted of, save for the few hundred or so surviving garrisoned troops, his entire cadre of comrades he had saved Magvel with. As well as the gemstones of Grado.

"Where is Eirika?" Ephraim to Seth, his sister's fierce protector. A skilled paladin who had not participated in the battle due to his involvement in the movement of the refugees.

"She will be here shortly, milord." said Seth. As he led Ephraim up a ladder and into the battlements of the Fort, where Lute and Artur, two of the best spellcasters Ephraim knew, were desperately calling down spells on the hordes of Skaven that had since overrun the abandoned town. "She is currently tending to the needs of the refugees, she will join us in the defense of the fort soon. Before she arrives, I would show you something." He then pointed at the area surrounding the fort. The hills on the horizon had turned black with the rats that marched across them. The defenders of the castle had been more than capable of holding back the rat swarm, but after the rat ogres began to emerge, it became harder and harder to repel the invaders.

"What is it you wish me to see, Seth? I know our situation is dire, but I do not pick fights that I cannot win."

"Milord, pardon me for saying this, but you did not choose this fight. It sought you out." said Seth before whistling and continuing as a regiment of Pegasus Knights approached the ramparts along with them. "There is no reason for you to die in this fight. Allow me and the rest of the soldiers to lay down our lives so that you may live."

The lord chortled and said, "Seth, I would not ask that of you! Besides, I we die in this world, we merely revert back to card form! I would not have you be brought back merely to fight against me. Whatever comes, I will stand by those who aided me."

The paladin smiled and then said, "Then you are once again worthy of wielding the Sacred Twin Siegmund." as he reached for the blessed lance. And nevertheless called for the retreat of the Pegasus Knights, as this was not a battle whose tide they could turn. If the fort's defenders fell, then at least the Pegasus Riders could finally give an account of what the enemy they faced was like.

As soon as Ephraim grasped Siegmund, he felt a surge of power overtake him, but he also felt the ground shake, and nearly give way as massive bell towers arose from the ground. Their gongs seemingly striking at the walls themselves as a grey-eyed ratman chanted fiercely.

Ephraim was shaken when he saw the glee with which the rest of the rats chanted. Whatever they were doing, it seemed to be working. He was about to call for a retreat from the walls when he then saw from the ground arise strange green hued contraptions that seemed to be glowing. By the time he had figured out their purpose, they had already started firing lightning at the fort walls, crumbling them.

As the walls crumbled around them, Ephraim saw Artur cradle a wounded Lute. It seemed as if she had been struck with a vial a ratman had thrown at her. She was weeping quietly as her entire torso seemed to be turning into a puddle before her. "I...don't want to die."

Ephraim looked away and attempted to call them back from the battlements even as the belltowers that arose from the ground struck against the walls of the fort. Ylisse's remaining Knights and Generals, led by Gilliam and Amelia replaced the archers and spellcasters that had previously defended the wall.

Before long the bell rang for a second time, this time shattering the wall of the fort overlooking them. The men atop the battlements were sent hurtling down into the ground. From Ephraim's position, he saw Amelia the General attempt to hold out her position alongside four surviving knights around Gilliam's corpse. This was a brave, but futile endeavor, as she was then struck down along with her knights when the lightning contraption fired at them, incinerating through their armor. He could not see Artur, but saw the position where he had been cradling the dying Lute was now broken off from the battlements.

Ephraim rallied the remaining men on the battlements to stand firm against the Ratmen who were now swiftly climbing the forts walls. His fatigue was overwhelming, he could barely hold aloft his spear against the enemy as the first ratman sprung out at the men. After the first rat fell, a dozen more took his place, and consequently dozens more appeared.

The battle, needless to say, was not going in Ephraim's favor, he reasoned as he spun around Siegmund atop his head and sent it crashing down into the face of one of the red-armored rats. At least up here it was a direct battle. Perhaps they would win this battle after all.

This thought was cut short by a massive explosion on the main gate. It appeared that due to the absence of archers, the beasts managed to get creative about their strategies. The walls shook once more and came tumbling down. If Ephraim had to give the rats credit, he began to reason as he desperately climbed the debris of the falling walls, it had to be their disregard for their allies, their eagerness and their resourcefulness.

Ephraim was tired, and desperate. As he reached the entrance to the fort, he could hear the sounds of a battle inside. The beasts had breached their defenses. He only hoped Eirika was still alive. He grasped for the doorframe to support himself and catch his breath, but his hand caught only matted fur, and he then felt an intense pain as it was bitten off.

Ephraim was still attempting to make sense over the loss of his arm as the hooded rats that had been waiting for him tore into their quarry with their knifes. Swords may have been weak to lances, but Ephraim was in no position to fight back. In no time at all, the Rat's blades were wet with delicious royal blood, and they began to argue amongst themselves over who got to keep the shiny spear, and who got to eat the tasty man. They decided tho break the spear in three to share it, and split the tasty man in two amongst the rat who had killed him first. The weakest rat could have the not-so-tasty red haired man-who-protected-tasty-man to himself.

(End of Part 2)

(Start of Part 3)

The surviving soldiers that were inside of the fort were uneasy, and rightly so. The few survivors of the battle that had been headed by Ephraim had seen what could only be described as the stuff of nightmares. Their bouts against the Risen had been terrifying, for sure, but the Risen at least did not EAT your comrades as soon as they were struck down. Needless to say, the morale of the Ylissean men was weakened, to say the least.

As Eirika paced through the fort's courtyard a few minutes before the walls came tumbling down, she began to assess the remaining strength her forces had. With her numbers consisting solely of the few archers and mages who had left the walls in fear after the Rat-Beasts had thrown their vials of fumes, the surviving great knights and paladins from the battle outside, all now dismounted, and the two squads of Pegasus Knights that had not been sent back to the capitol, Eirika was not at all confident in their chances of surviving, much less protecting the fort's keep that stood at the center of the courtyard.

Her spirits rose, however, as she saw the emergence of her friend Lyon from the corridor that led to the barracks. After the men had fled from the fort's interiors, claiming that dark shadows had claimed the corridors, Eirika had been forced to call the soldiers out from the inside of the fort's perimeter shortly after her brother had arrived. This had resulted in an increased disability to ward off the approaching rat-men. At first, she had sent her friend L'Arachel and her two henchmen, Dozla and Rennac to investigate before tending to the needs of the hidden townspeople but did not hear back from them after returning. Having assumed the worst, Lyon and his gemstones took it upon themselves to clear out the fort and rescue L'Arachel if possible.

Her spirits fell as quickly as they rose however, when she saw the state in which Lyon and his men were in on their return. The Prince of Grado was clutching his side in what seemed to be an unbearable pain, muttering, "T-those beasts struck as shadows!", and the rest of his group fared no better. Duessel the Obsidian was bleeding profusely from wounds all over his chest, Caellach the Tiger eye was nursing a glancing blow that had been aimed at his neck, finally, Selena the Flourspar seemed to have a haunted expression as she cradled a small deck of shining cards. No other of the famed warriors emerged from the fort's interior.

"What happened?" asked Eirika to Lyon as soon as he neared her position. In the distance, the clanging of the bell-towers was getting nearer, and the ground was beginning to shake. "Did you find L'Arachel? Where are your Generals?"

"You're looking at them," croaked Lyon as he grabbed the side of his belly and winced.

Duessel, the Obsidian general spoke up then, whilst the surviving clerics rushed to aid Lyon and the other Gemstones. "The Rats are already inside of the fort. Not their main force, but rather what seems to be their elite. They have been striking at the officers and healers for the better part of the battle. You did well in calling the soldiers back from the fort. None of the men who remained are alive, and I cannot guarantee we cleaned out the fort."

"What do you mean? Where is L'Arachel?" asked Eirika again, desperately.

Selena then stepped forward and presented three cards that shined brightly. "This... is all we could find of her and her companions. They were right alongside the Sacred staff Latona. We could not retrieve the Einherjar of our fallen comrades."

Eirika nearly dropped to her knees and said, "At the very least, we will not be along in this battle then!"

Eirika then attempted to reach out and grab the Einherjar to re-summon her friend but was stopped by Lyon, who grabbed her and said, "Eirika, we mustn't summon their Einherjar!"

"Why not? We have need of their strength in this battle!"said Eirika, still reaching for the cards.

"Would you call them back only for them to die again? We may not be able to retrieve their cards the next time around." said Lyon, as suddenly the distant sound of bells began striking at the walls and the ground began to shake. What had begun a few moments before as a distant sound now filled the air, and filled the soldiers with dread.

"What shall we do then? The walls won't hold out for much longer-" began Eirika as then the ground shook terribly and she could hear the screams of the men on the wall as they ran back inside of the fort, straight into the arms of the Rats that now dominated the fort's interiors.

The men in the courtyard then heard frantic screams for help ring out from the fort's corridors, but no one dared investigate. Before long, however, Innes, Saleh, and Knoll emerged from the stairways that led into the courtyard along with a dozen or so archers and a handful of mages. The three men looked raggled, it was apparent that their retreat had not been an uneventful one.

"Lyon!" called Knoll as he and the two others rushed to their position. "I am pleased to see you again. Free from the Demon King's touch!"

"I just wish it were not in such tidings," said Lyon. "Tell me, how fare the walls?"

"Terribly," said Innes. "We could not stem the tide of Rat-beasts from our position, the Pegasus Riders have either been sent back to the capitol or are currently under orders from Seth, and I cannot find Lute and Artur. As if that weren't enough, it also seems the Rats have already grasped a foothold. It is only a matter of time before they take the fort, probably eat us."

"What's the plan then?" asked Eirika, "Do you suggest we pull back? We've still some squads of pegasus knights and a few spare pegasi in the stable."

"That won't do. There are not enough Pegasi to transport all the soldiers and refugees. Even if we prioritize women and children, there is no guarantee they'll get through the Rat blockades. Of the past squadrons we sent out, only half made the trip. We'll need to time the departure, and make a fitting distraction."

It was then that a small, indigo-haired girl that had been standing conveniently close by then said. "I- I could do that."

"Myrrh?" said Eirika, "What are you saying?"

"I could use my dragonstone to help!" said the small winged girl. "If I can use it now to create a distraction, it may be enough to distract the rat-bests. Please go with the Pegasus Knights Lady Eirika!"

Lyon then chimed in and said, "Then it is settled, Eirika can go to the capitol and tell Chrom and his Tactician what occurred here. Perhaps the next place that comes under attack may have more luck than we did."

Eirika had been about to object to the plan, but then a crashing boom came from the main gate. The Rats had blasted through it with both their lightning machines, and the success of their chants.

Eirika then turned to rally the remaining Generals to action, but found only a handful of them. The rest of the present soldiers were the dismounted Paladins and Great Knights, as well as the surviving veterans of Magvel, and the remaining archers that had survived the wall. Nevertheless she and Innes quickly got the soldiers into position, even as the rat-horde came crashing through the front gate.

The forces of Ylisse had only been in their defensive positions for mere seconds before the rats came crashing against them. The dismounted Great Knights and Paladins made for a lackluster shield wall, but by now desperation and fear evaporated whatever doubt the men had. The archers and mages had taken up positions atop the Fort's keep. Led by Innes, they were raining down their ordinance in an attempt to make the troops on the ground's battle easier.

Eirika was on the front lines during the conflict, wielding the blade Sieglinde that Seth had given her before he had gone in search of Ephraim. The rats had been in seeming awe during the beginning of their attack, as they saw that the women of the fort fought alongside the men. This had allowed the sword mistress Marisa to break through their position and fight on the front lines alongside Gerik, the legendary mercenary. Their skill and Tethys's dancing helped make for a good replacement for mere steel in the battle line.

But even the bravery of the Ylissean troops could not prolong the inevitable, as the rats began to eat away at their line, felling the Paladins of the line first, and then breaking through the lines. When Eirika saw that Gerik had been struck down, she had been about the charge forward to avenge his death alongside Marisa, but was pulled back by Joshua, who wielded his nation's sword Audhulma the ice blade. Even in a different realm, against beasts unlike anything the heroes of legend had faced, Audhulma served its purpose of slaying monsters well. Joshua told Eirika, as he brought her away from the front lines, and into the entrance of the fort's keep, the top of which held the stable for the stationed Pegasus Knights. "Eirika, you must not fall here. Report what you have seen to the one who summoned us. We'll give you a chance to escape!" Joshua then gave Eirika Gerik's Einherjar

Eirika thanked Joshua before he went back to assissting the keep's defense. Marisa and Tethys were not visible to Eirika and she decided to head up the keep before her mind jumped to conclusions. The battle had taken a bad turn, the line had been broken and now only a small conglomerate of warriors that were rallying around Ross, Garcia and Joshua were holding back the Rat-Men, the few remaining clerics, as well as Natasha and Moulder desperately healing their wounds. If these defenses failed to hold, only Ewan and Colm would stand between the rat-men and the townspeople, as they had been ordered to stand back and guard the inside of the keep.

Eirika soon reached the stables at the top of the keep, and saw that only three pegasus riders and a wyvern knight had remained in the vast, spacious stable.

"If you are here, then the fort has fallen," Cormag, the wyvern rider said. "Did anyone else come with you?"

"I did," said Myrrh who had followed Eirika's ascend by flight. "I'll help you escape!"

"It's settled then!" said Tana, Eirika's childhood friend and Princess of Frelia, as she patted the excess space in her saddle before hopping on her pegasus. "You can ride with me!"

Eirika nodded and got on the pegasus with Tana. Her comrades also got atop their mounts and prepared to take off. Eirika then heard Cormag ask, "I take it my brother has fallen in this realm, as well as the last? Tell me, at the very least, did that snake Valter die alongside him?"

"Yes, yes he did." said Eirika solemnly.

"Then he died content." said Cormag as the riders began their flight away from the stables and above the doomed fort. The wyvern knight to Eirika's left then added. "My lady. It would be best that you do not look down when we leave. What you see will not be a pleasant sight."

The flight of the riders was swift. In moment, they had left the confines of the fort. Eirika had attempted to withhold her gaze, but could not help to look down as they left the stables. The sight that met her eyes was gruesome. Of the battle lines there only remained few individual warriors that were no longer holding off the massive influx of rats into the fort's keeps, from wherein shrill screams of terror were heard, but fighting for their lives as the sea of rat-men slowly overtook them. The archers and mages on the roof fared no better. For even as they desperately shot down at the courtyard, the rats were already starting to scale the keep walls.

After the fliers were over the fort's walls, Myrrh, who had been flying with her own wings above them began to fly lower, before grasping her Dragonstone and taking her true form. In this state, Myrrh began to receive the brunt of the green lightning bursts, which she returned in kind with her fire breath, making significant dents in the rat's advance.

This advantage did not last long however, as the Rats began to climb on the dragon's back like a sea sinking a ship. After a short time of struggling, the massive dragon changed form once again into that of the indigo-haired girl, and she took flight. This change of pace was good for Myrrh, as the rats who had been atop her fell to the ground, and the lightning machines, having been accustomed to shooting at the larger target of the dragon, proved to be inefficient at hitting the winged girl, with one of the machines even exploding, setting the rats around it on fire.

This would have been a cause for celebration for Eirika, but it was only a small victory against the massive losses that they had suffered that day. As the winged mounts and their riders flew into the night, Eirika held onto the Einherjar she had managed to salvage as she began to try and make sense of the events she had borne witness to in this strange realm.

(End of Part 3)

[End of Chapter]

Next Chapter: {Pending}


	2. The Battle for Samsooth (The Captain)

Chapter 2:

Battle of Samsooth City (Part 1)

Commanding Lord(s): None. Forces of Ylissean army under command of Grandmaster Robin.

First Generation Elibean Heroes serve as auxiliary troops under the command of Lords Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn.

The days following the battle at the Feroxi border were difficult ones for Grandmaster Robin, to say the least. Writing the reports for what was both the famed Tactician's first major loss, both Tactical and Strategic, the loss for an entire garrisoned force of troops AND the wanton slaughter and enslavement of an entire town was an unenviable task. Recent events being a significant blow to Robin's pride, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

The movements of the Rat-men, had been constantly moving southward after the taking of Seravant. The next city in their path was the old city of Samsooth, whose mountainous surroundings and steep walls promised to make for a defend-able location. Recording the first-hand information that the surviving Einherjars from the battle at the border recovered, Robin decided to keep tabs on the Rat-Men's movements via pegasus knights. Not wanting to risk losing more personnel than he had already, he opted to make use of the first generation Elibean heroes for this battle, so as not to sacrifice an additional regiment should the battle go south.

(Part 1)

The wind in the Samsooth mountain's sky was sharp and brisk, stinging the uncovered faces of the pegasus knights of Ylisse. Though few birds flew over these cold mountains, such terrain made for the natural environment for the pegasi and their riders.

There were around 60 Pegasus Knights in the reconnaissance company that had set out, led by their weathered Captain Mahnya, a veteran of the First Plegian war against Ylisse. Alongside them, but nevertheless removed from their overall formation rode the flying heroes of Elibe, merely three falcoknights and two wyvern lords. Though the numbers of their auxiliary forces were small, they had proven themselves in earlier raids, and each of the Einherjar fought with a strength above an entire squad of Ylissean fliers. Although at first the recon squadron had been led by the Einherjars, support for their usage and faith in their capacities as leaders dwindled when word of what happened in Seravant got out. Fiora and her companions were demoted to auxiliary troops to ease the soldier's worries.

The pegasus squadron had been tasked with running reconnaissance on the Rat-Men's advance through the Samsooth Mountains, as they had only recently begun to make their way towards the city. In preparation for any and all engagements between the forces f Ylisse and the mysterious Rat-men, this was taking advantage of the Rat-Men's lack of aerial troops, which Robin had noted as a defining factor in Eirika's survival in the border battle.

Captain Mahnya led the formation over the mountains, her pegasus fleeting over the air as if the frigid air was no obstacle to it. Gliding through turbulent air currents smoothly, she had a vantage point over the mountain range as the sun set over it. Over the distance, Mahnya could see the Rat-Men army's advance, they had little cohesion, and had many stragglers. As Mahnya considered whistling an attack formation on the stragglers, one of her forward fliers blew her air-whistle, which the knights used to communicate through the harsh mountain winds, calling her attention. When she turned to see her, she saw that a village on a cliffside overlooking the valley the rat-men were passing had ignored their summons to evacuate to the fortified city, and instead set up their own, flimsy, defenses.

Mahnya called down her fellow riders to descent upon the town, the radiant sight of descending milky white pegasi reflecting off the sunset, and diverting the amount of Rat-Men approaching the village to increase from a mere trickle of stragglers, to a significant force.

The pegasus knights were greeted with cheers upon their arrival. The villagers greeting the soldiers with open arms. Mahnya, who was wearing the regalia of command, then approached a burly man who seemed to hold some manner of importance, judging by how his fellows stood by him.

"You in charge here?" asked Mahnya, getting off her pegasus.

The man then said, "Yeah. As in charge as anyone can be in this predicament. What brings you to our village? We thought you'd forgotten about us when you holed up in the city."

"We ordered an evacuation!" said Mahnya sternly. "Why are so many of you still here?"

"We couldn't get out in time." said the man. "We have been hit by a plague. You'll see this is the reason I am in charge. Our elder was one of the first hit. His eyes became jelly, and his bones seeped through his skin. Too few of our men are still alive to get the women and children to the city safely. This is worse than the Risen. These rat-men fight too dirty."

"I understand." said the Captain. She then called forward her lieutenants to consult further action. Stepping away from the village representative she began to discuss amongst her comrades their next course of action.

"Lieutenant!" said Mahnya, calling her comrade to attention, "What news have you heard about the plague? Beyond that, have we enough Pegasi to evacuate the entire villace?" The captain had already made the sufficient mental calculations to come to her own conclusion, but she sorely wished to be proven wrong. The fact that they lacked a variety of options only made the situation even more uncomfortable.

"We don't, Captain. Even if we were to take three villagers each on our Pegasi, it would not be enough." she then leaned in and spoke in a harsh whisper. "Besides, I wouldn't want to carry most of these villagers. Many of the villages have been hit by plagues our healers have had no luck at all curing. Even the most advanced staffs cannot calm their disease. Taking them to the city would be a bad idea."

Mahnya contemplated her options in silence. If she and her knights left all the people behind, she would never forgive herself. Surely she could save at least the healthy villagers?

It was then that amidst her musings, her eye was caught by the Einherjars conversing amongst themselves. Phantoms conversing about long-dead topics. The captain suddenly had an idea then. She called them over to her position, as well as her lieutenant.

"I've an idea," she said to the gathered soldiers. The footsteps of the enroaching Rat-Men beginning to sound even behind the makeshift battlements of the villagers. "We will take your healthy. Pack provisions and the bare essentials. My knights will fly you across the mountains. We cannot take you near Samsooth City. It will soon be under siege. But we can give you a sizable distance from the Rat-beasts. Enough so that you can get to Menedy and then to Ysstol if need be."

"What will we do?" asked Fiora, the phantom Falcoknight who was the leader of the three legendary pegasus sisters, and had command over the two Wyvern Riders of Eliwood's army.

"Yours will be the most difficult job." said Mahnya. "Whilst I lead the evacuation of the village, you and your companions must ride against the Rat-Men and hold them back from the village walls for as long as you can. When I give the order, you will then fall back and accompany us on our final departure. You must hold them off until we can do at least two runs."

"Understood," said the blue haired knight. Before taking off alongside her companions. Their takeoff making a resounding 'thud' against the ground.

Mahnya then turned to her lieutenant and told her, "Gather the healthy children first. I'll go inspect the walls and see how long they'll hold. Fly over the mountains and head south," she said as she pointed at a mountain pass that while easily maneuverable in the air, was nigh impossible to traverse by foot as the Rat-Men were advancing.

As her subordinates had begun to take off after rounding up all the children they could, she heard a terrible thundering sound. No doubt the Rat-Men were already nearing the village's walls. In the time after she had ordered her knights to round up potential survivors, she had then proceeded to inspect the walls. She found the village's resident hunters and still-able fighters taking up defensive positions. Though she knew their position was a doomed one, she could not resist commending the thirty or so gathered men for preparing to throw themselves against the vermin-tide for the sake of their families.

When the pegasus riders took off with their charges, a terrible scream was heard from soldier and villager alike as they both saw the Rat-Men from their perch in the sky. Taking off into the air herself, Mahnya opted to forego aiding in the evacuation in favor of helping the Elibean heroes thin the vermintide. What she saw made her face pale and made her nearly drop the reins of her saddle mid-flight.

The beasts that marched towards the village were not the mere man-sized rats she had seen from afar. But rather a detachment of monstrous vermin that stood out from their few "normal" sized counterparts. These abominations were lead by odd, misshapen (for rat-beasts anyways) figures, who stood out from both the standard rat-man and rat-behemoth.

Mahnya the frantically sought out her comrades, quickly finding the trio of Pegasus Sisters preforming a concentrated attack on one of the behemoths, narrowly taking it down.

The two wyvern riders were having much less luck. The female wyvern rider was throwing her spears around desperately attempting to fell one rat-behemoth, whilst the male wyvern rider was running the smaller rat-men through with his sword, the Killer Lance he was previously wielding jutting out of a dead rat-behemoth's head.

Her spirits kindled by the efforts of the Einherjar, Mahnya blew her whistle and called a detachment of two knights away from evacuation duty to act as her guard. Mahnya wished fervently to fight alongside the Elibean legends, rat-ogres be damned. With that, the Ylissean pegasus knights descended from the sky and the trio struck as one at one of the charging rat-abominations who had begun to finish their ascent up the cliff. The three fell upon the monster feverishly, stabbing and slashing with spear and sword. Mahnya fought as she had never before in her life. She stabbed at the monster with a ferocity that had not been present when fighting fellow man.

This excitement would not last, however. As mere moments after the three riders managed to behead the beast, another one took it's place, grasping Mahnya's right guard from her saddle and crushing her against the ground. Mahnya's other escort was then thrown off her pegasus when one of the misshapen figures caught it with its stick. The pegasus rider barely had time to get on her feet before being torn apart by the smaller rats as they swarmed her. Upon seeing this, Mahnya pulled her pegasus higher out of their reach, and her spirits sank. In her grief, she neglected to notice the Skaven sharpshooter that had been taking aim at her since she had first brought down the first rat-ogre, and did not hear his rifle fire (Not that she would have been able to identify it). The captain would feel an intense pain suddenly erupt from her breast as she was then thrown violently off the saddle.

Her pegasus made little attempts at rescuing her, as it was caught off the air by a rat-abomination soon after. Mahnya was sent sprawling into the ground, nearly blacking out from the blow, but relatively unharmed save for the gaping wound in her chest. She attempted to stand on her feet, but was set upon by rat-men as soon as she had unsheathed her sword.

Though she was hurt, she was still a capable soldier, and so quickly got to work keeping the rats at bay. She was a bit put-off however by the fact that for all her efforts, she wasn't doing any real damage. None of the rats fell dead, some bled, and others still took to blocking her attacks with crude wooden shields. When she finally killed one, three more took its place, snapping and swinging their swords wildly. Suddenly, from amongst their ranks she saw they were pushing out units, probably a shift in tactics. Mahnya gripped her blade to prepare to deal with this foe, but was shocked to see that what came for where were not more rats, but shackled human slaves who proceeded to tackle her and pin her to the ground. As she prepared to resign herself to her death, as the rat-men were hungrily approaching her with their weapons bared, a spear fell from the air, impaling the rat-man closest to her.

Mahnya looked up weakly and saw that one of the Einherjar, Vaida the wyvern lord, had come to her aid. She then felt herself be pulled up into the back part of a saddle. When she looked, she saw the green hair of the male Wyvern Lord, Heath. With Mahnya secured, the two took off quickly, just as the rat-giants were coming in to strike at them.

"Have either of you seen how much of the evacuation is completed?" asked Mahnya, gripping her throbbing chest. "We cannot let them through until we've evacuated everyone!"

"They're nearly finished, ma'am." said Heath. It appeared to Mahna that the Einherjar were beginning to pull back. Though they were bound by the cards to follow orders, it seemed they had some level of self preservation. Mahnya shuddered, how many times did they die through history before King Chrom found them?

Her thoughts were violently interrupted though, when Heath's head then burst open from a bullet entering from beneath his right ear and shattering his cranium. sending the wyvern careening off the air. Mahnya knocked the lifeless, dissipating Heath off the saddle and attempted to take the reins of the beast. However, upon the Einherjar's death, the wyvern began to dissipate back into card form, falling from the sky as its wings ceased to exist. Mahnya pulled on the thinning reins and crash-landed the wyvern into the cliff-side a good 60 meters or so from the advancing Rat-Men.

Mahnya looked back at the oncoming storm and grabbed the Einherjar of Heath off the ground, running up the cliff, hoping to reach the village before the beasts. She looked back at the still-fighting Einherjar, but was distraught when she saw only two of them remained, the eldest of the Pegasus Sisters, and the female wyvern rider. The ratmen were no longer even slightly hindered by their opponents.

The captain then felt a pain in her chest. There was no way in hell her wound was not festering from the rat-men's damage. She felt her chest throb and knew she'd be dead if she didn't find a healer soon.

She eventually reached the village's gates, and they opened a tiny bit, just enough for her to pass through before slamming shut and the villagers opening fire on the rat-men who were following Mahnya. The captain looked around once inside, and was glad to see that the evacuation had been completed, her comrades in arms standing in the village center, searching for healthy stragglers. She rushed to join them. Her chest hurt bitterly, she coughed into the ground and felt a warm liquid eject from her mouth, blood. Not resigning herself to a pitiable death, she barked, "Healer! Now!" to her troops, calling her lieutenant over to fix her wound, as being a Falco-Knight, she had been equipped with a stave before heading out.

"Give me a situation report." said Manhya as she felt her wound closing up. She still felt internal damage, but that would have to wait for another time, if she could survive that long.

"The village has been evacuated of all healthy civilians, and they are on their way to Menedy as we speak."said the young lieutenant.

"Have any contingents of the rat-men followed them?"

"None that we've observed. But our own retreat seems to be a tad more difficult. The rat-men have set themselves up around the village and have aimed at the air around us. They seem to have rapid bows. The Einherjar have already been wiped out. We can neither stay nor leave without incurring heavy casualties."

Upon hearing this news, Mahnya only stared at the ground, and then at her soldiers. They looked tired, but not exhausted. Though they had seen little combat today, they had been forced into minor skirmishes for the past week with hardly a full night's rest. Half of their company had already been wiped out, with the Einherjar supposed to supplant at the very least 20 soldiers each. In Mahnya's eye, her surviving soldiers were in no condition to battle, much less fly through the bloodbath awaiting them in the skies. Nevertheless she looked her lieutenant in the eye and told her to gather the other commanding officers, as she had new orders for them.

It did not take long for the squad leaders to show up, and Mahnya began to tell them of her plan to retreat. They would fly out of the village quickly and in low altitudes so as to distract the fire from the rat-men. As soon as they were clear they were to reach as high an altitude as possible, circle around to make a final gauge of the enemy forces, and then retreat to the city. Having said the instructions, her officers saluted her and were off to relay the orders to their squads. Mahnya hitched a ride on one of the younger and lighter recruit's pegasus, hoping the young beast could manage both their weights.

As soon as the orders were relayed, the riders were off. And not a moment too soon, as the walls did not last long against the rats. The sick hunters and fighters were no match for the horde, and were defeated in minutes. Only about 25 pegasi had taken off when the rats began to near. The remaining pegasus knights broke formation and took to the skies hurriedly, getting hit head on by the Skaven snipers. Of the 60 Pegasus knights who had come to the village, only 18 got through the rat-man blockade.

Mahnya looked down at the carnage from her position in the sky, and mourned her comrades. She pondered if the information on the new rat-men units and the villagers they had barely managed to rescue were worth the loss of her soldiers and the Einherjar in battle. That was not a question she was sure she wanted an answer to.


	3. The Battle for Samsooth (The Tactician)

Siege of Samsooth (The Tactician)

Battle of Samsooth City (Part 2)

Commanding Lord(s): None. Forces of Ylissean army under command of Grandmaster Robin.

First Generation Elibean Heroes serve as auxiliary troops under the command of Lords Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn.

The city of Samsooth stood overlooking the valley of the Samsooth mountains through which the Skaven army was making their advance, the rats having begun to group themselves into their respective clans since their arrival on the continent. They had also hired various bandit groups, who had gladly accepted fighting in the front lines for the Skaven, if it meant avoiding a much less gratifying end as a meal for the rats.

The Skaven and their slaves marched towards the walled city, whose archers and snipers found themselves criminally outclassed by the Rat-Men. From the walls, volley after volley was fired halfheartedly and with little aim, for if one spent too long preparing a shot he would find himself on the business end of a Rat-Man's rifle. The mages fared no better in their efforts to hold back the mass of rats outside of the walls, as the common mage found himself outclassed by the glowing contraptions that could tear apart parapets, as well as the odd fireword-like devices that a smattering of rat-men held that caused a greater explosion than even the most fearsome Bolganone spell caused.

While the battle to keep the Skaven's siege machines out of the walls raged outside, a different battle raged within the city. Civilians and Soldiers alike fought off swarms of rats that rushed out of sewers, burning the many bodies in large bonfires that reeked a stench strong enough to make even the hardiest of men lose his lunch.

Grandmaster Tactician Robin overlooked both of these battles from his position on the city keep, where he had his maps and charts arranged on a large oaken table for his strategies. Accompanying him he had two Swordmasters and Blade Lord Einherjar Lyn positioned as his personal protection, he did this because the siege of Samsooth had brought a surprising amount of assassins to try and claim his life, be they hired, blundering humans, or the swift Rat-Men who had managed to strike down an entire room of Soldiers without breaking a sweat. This had caused him to increase security and pull Lyn herself back from the walls, leaving the Einherjar of Eliwood to command the wall defenses.

Although Robin had not shared many words with Lyn, he felt a connection between the both of them whenever he issued her orders, even in battle against Rat-Men who came to kill him specifically. He knew he could trust his life in her hands without as much as drawing a tome. He had paid it little heed at the time, but when he had acquired her Einherjar card, he remembered that it had spoken to him directly and claimed to have already met him. Robin brushed it off then. However, as he returned to his plans for defending the city based on the information the Pegasus Riders he had sent to scout ahead under Captain Mahnya had given him, he thought he could remember some vignettes from his time in the land of Elibe, where Lyn and her compatriots hailed from...

The Rat-Men were gaining traction on the walls, and their siege towers were now bearing down on the city walls, stray slaves being flung at the gathered Knights and Generals in the walls to scatter them. By the time the armored men managed to push back the gaunt human slaves, the siege towers crashed against the walls and burst open, vomiting the rat horde upon the city. The men of Ylisse held fast though, and for a moment, it seemed as if they could hold the line against the sea of beasts, allowing the archers and mages to make their retreats from the walls.

But their hopes were soon dashed when a figure emerged from one of the forward siege towers. A Rat-Man wielding a large scythe in one arm and a thick, curved sword on the other. This rat had an odd raised helmet with spikes, and wore long rods in his back which ended in heads of many beasts, both man, rat, and things not-of-this-world. Every time he raised his sword a knight died, and every time he raised his scythe, he tore through his enemies and found purchase for his comrades through the Ylissean formation, slaughtering defenseless archers who had been attempting to find a vantage-point to assist their comrades.

Queek Headtaker had managed to obtain a foothold atop the massive walls of Samsooth City in a mere five minutes, his fellow rats already streaming in from the opening he had carved up for them. What followed would have been a one-sided slaughter in favor of the Skaven, had the Einherjar of Lord Eliwood not taken to the walls and rallied his surviving Generals and Knights, as well as relieving them somewhat by bringing in his personal guard of heroes, headed by Marcus, Lowen and Harken. Eliwood's arrival restored the morale of his underlings and saved the lives of the surviving spellcasters, who set to work immediately by throwing down Elfires on Queek's rats.

Queek's face then contorted to what would be a grin on a human face, content at finally having what would perhaps be a worthy head to collect. At the very least he would take that shining sword that the red-haired manling was swinging about. It looked like quite a trophy. Queek charged, and his underlings followed gleefully.

Harken attempted to strike out at Queek first, with Lowen being close in tow, before a Skaven on the mountainside shot a Doom Rocket at the green haired cavalier, blowing Lowen off the walls. The force of the blast sent Harken stumbling forward when he had been preparing a swing and left him off-guard when Queek jabbed him through the top of his shoulder with his sword, slicing through his deltoid muscle, thus making Harken's subsequent attempt to lift his arm to prepare a block against a slash directed at his waist a painful, yet barely successful endeavor. Queek was not to be deterred from his prize though, and quickly brought down his scythe on Harken's head, lopping it off. This victory was too easy for Queek, and so he did not bother a glance as the head rolled off the city wall, and instead focused his attention on the red-haired youth.

Eliwood ordered Marcus to lead the defense of the wall whilst he fought off this strange Rat-Lord. And so Eliwood raised Durandal and prepared to stab at the Rat's throat, only to find his blow be swatted aside, and force him into a defensive stance as Queek used his scythe, sword, and tail in quick succession to attack the manling with all his resources. This barrage forced Eliwood to take many steps backwards, but his skill held true, and none of the rat's blows struck him.

This skirmish went on for some time, and led to both warriors quickly being short of breadth, and while catching his breath, Eliwood looked around to see that both man and rat alike stopped their fighting to look at the spectacle unfolding before them.

Knowing that defeating this vermin would win back the morale of the soldiers, Eliwood struck forward with his blade, wishing to end this battle quickly before he tired further. For Durandal was a heavy blade, and Eliwood was unaccustomed to using it off of horseback. If this battle turned to a test of stamina, he was sure to lose. But Queek seemed to have the same determination as the lord, as Eliwood's strike was parried and returned in kind with an upwards slash from his scythe, a move that Eliwood was unprepared for, the scythe soon cutting through his robes and flimsy armor and then slicing through his flesh, making him cringe in pain and vomit blood on his opponent, blinding Queek briefly.

Knowing he would not be able to wield the legendary blade in his current state, Eliwood cast it aside and drew his rapier, intent on striking down the abomination before him while he could. Eliwood raised his rapier before him to gauge where he wished it to strike, brought it back behind him to get traction for his blow, and then raised his blade again after moving back in preparation to stab at the beast's throat. As his blade approached the rat, his heart dropped when he saw it feint to its right, making his hit miss completely, and then bringing the scythe that it had stealthily raised so that Eliwood's attack would leave him in range of it. Queek brought down his scythe and lopped Eliwood's right arm clean off.

Had Eliwood not been fighting in desperation, he would have noted Queek's blindness was merely a ruse, and he would have seen the rat's muscles tense in preparation to its feint. Eliwood cursed his own nearsightedness as he gripped the stump of his forearm and lamented his loss, as Queek stood over him, raising his scythe yet again to claim Eliwood's head as a trophy.

But Eliwood was determined not to die as easily, he saw the blade Durandal had fallen close to him, and so he rolled away from Queek's scythe towards Durandal, gripped it with his left arm and charged one last time at the beast, determined to inspire his men to hold the wall.

Eliwood's brutishness surprised Queek, and while the Skaven managed to evade the blade, he was unable to avoid being tackled by the angry lord who threw the both of them off of the wall and into the city itself, causing both of them to fall crashing into the wooden ceiling of the side of a cathedral near the walls, putting them out of sight.

The seeming loss of both Eliwood and Queek brought stillness to the two sides, the humans grieving for the lord, and the Skaven fearing for their own lives, before both sides returned to hacking away at each other. Marcus's illlustrous past as a veteran leading him to position the Ylisseans in a advantageous formation that allowed them to hold off the Skaven horde in a stalemate for the moment...

While the battle at the walls began to fare well for the defenders, the fight for the city streets was much less fortunate for the men under Einherjar Hector's command. Warriors, Berserkers and Sorcerors whose raw strength had been expected to hold back the hordes of rat-men from the city streets in the case the beast's contraptions managed to tear down the gates were gathered with little regard for formation, Hector deciding to focus instead on giving them room to maneuver instead.

The breaching of the city gates happened sooner than Hector had hoped for, as a conglomerate of Doom rockets and Warp Cannon-fire hit the gate simultaneously and singed the door into ashes and shards that rained down on the defenders of the city. Hector himself would have been doomed to be impaled by a falling piece of debris had his right-hand man Oswin not pushed him out of the way in time.

Out of the clouds of dust a multiple headed monstrosity came barrelling out moments after the explosion. It took all of Hector's iron stomach to not keel over vomiting at the sight of it. It was an abomination, it was as if multiple men and rats had been sewn together into a towering beast. Hector threw a hand-axe its way as soon as he regained his composure and decided he wanted that thing killed, regardless of the waves of rat-men that entered the city alongside it.

"Oi, Canas!" bellowed Hector to his fellow Einherjar who had been concerting alongside the Ylissean sorcerers to form a support column against the rat-horde. "Take that thing down, now!" he said pointing at the abomination.

The purple haired Shaman looked at the lord oddly for a few moments, almost considering ignoring those orders, before he signalled his subordinates to attack the monstrosity, even as larger and larger numbers of rats launched themselves at the Berserkers the mages had been supporting. The abomination fell quickly, but its mission was successful, and the Skaven broke through Hector's lines using the ruse he had so quickly fallen for. The axe-men being unable to fend off the rat-men successfully. Before long, Canas's sorcerers also came under fire from the rat's claws and swords, their brute weapons slicing through the magicians. Canas himself would have died had he not whipped out his Nosferatu tome and began to leech life for himself from the many, many skaven stabbing at him. He would continue to subsist in this way, until his tome grew dim, as it had run out of charge. Canas dropped the tome and closed his eyes as seven different Skaven blades fell on him.

Hector used his holy axe, Armads to cut a path for himself away from the encroaching skaven, attempting to run faster than the horde to safety. The Rat-men had cut through the first lines of defenses Hector had set up, the few remaining Warriors and Berserkers, about seventy in total, attempted to hold a small alley near the gate, and a small group of mages led by the young girl, Nino held off the stairs that led to the wall with the aid of a badly wounded Oswin. If Hector couldn't muster up enough men to charge the gate, they would all die.

Hector found their salvation in the second line of defense that he had set up a few blocks down the road, a significant amount of 300 Paladins fit for a rapid relief of the remaining warriors at the gate, as well as 700 Great Knights who would stay a step behind the Paladins and would, hopefully, force back the rat-beasts. He gave the signal and demanded a horse. The rats would NOT take the city while Hector drew breath. In this iteration of his card, anyways.

The horsemen charged at the rat-men who were swelling through the streets like an ocean of teeth and fur. The men screamed warcries, although the most of them seemed to Hector more like frightened attempts at it.

As Hector's cavalry charge neared the rat-men, Hector raised his axe above his head and then brought it down as the men struck the rats. The Paladins and Hector tore a path through the rat-men, the great knights mopping up behind them at first, and taking the lead afterwards. But the skaven were not to go down that easily, and soon most, if not the greater majority of the horses, fell dead under the legs of the men, as the skaven had taken to striking at the exposed horses. Hector too was thrown off his mount, but it did little to stop his advance, as, almost miraculously, his men began to push the rat-men out of the gates.

As Hector and his men began to cheer as they fought, as they had managed to push the rat-men nearly completely out of the city gates, but they noticed moments too late as the warp cannons of the skaven fired at the walls above them, shattering the integrity of the stones above, and raining rocks, and some of the men and skaven fighting atop the walls, on the soldiers below. The collapse of the wall also caved in the stairs Nino, Oswin, and the surviving mages had been defending, burying them in stone.

Hector ran from the gate in fright, nearly falling over from the sheer amount of rocks in his path. He jumped over a particularly large boulder, and was then in the clear. He landed face first into the city-road, but got up quickly, and turned behind him to assess the damage to the wall, and count his men.

While he was distraught at having lost nearly all of the Warriors, Berserkers, and Sorcerers he had begun the battle with, as well as the larger part of his cavalry, who had either lost their lives in the fighting, or in the collapse of the gate. Not to mention the deaths of those atop of the wall.

Hector rallied his men to holler in victory, however, he could not allow their morale to fall. At first, it seemed as if the men's cries made the very walls of the city shake and reverberate with echoes of their cries. But soon a chill came to Hector's neck as he then understood that he had made a terrible mistake in assuming he had ever won.

Moments after the Skaven laughed at the humans for thinking they had won, many skaven rained down from the buildings overlooking the road-gates. Many skaven died from the mere fall, but the element of surprise was on their side, and they killed many men before they could react. Hector may have been able to fight off the tricky ambush of the great rats, but this would not happen, because from the Cathedral to Naga at the side of the Gate, came Queek himself, dressed in the church regalia, and wielding the sword of Roland, Durandal, that he had taken from his most recent kill, the red-headed youth whose head was now stuck on one of Queek's pikes.

Hector gripped Armads and charged at Queek, with a grand total of five Paladins following him into the fray to take back the Cathedral.

Robin as he looked now was almost completely unlike as he was during his travels with the Shepherds. His expression had turned gaunt, and his white hair was now dirtied with sweat and dust. But his worries were much larger than his appearance, for they were something a good rest and groom would not fix. The Rat-Men had broken through the city gates and had seemingly obliterated the Einherjars of Eliwood and Hector off the face of the earth. However, not all the news was bad, for other reports spoke of the Pegasus Knights rallying the citizen's militia, and Lyn's cavalrymen leading a good 3,000 infantrymen in defense of the city's palace to aparrent success.

Robin had also read reports on an odd Rat-Lord who wore the heads of some of the more talented fighters of both Ylisse and Elibe, gathering the heads of Captain Mahnya, Einherjar Bartre, Einherjar Raven, both Lords Hector and Eliwood, amongst a few others. Oddly enough, reports on this rat's whereabouts ended after the rats had overwhelmed the market district. After this point, Einherjar Matthew, who Robin had ordered to spy on their opponents, stopped sending word. Robin was not surprised, as from Robin's position overlooking the city, he could see the rat-men had already taken to the rooftops of the city. Unless Robin could successfully defend the city palace, the city would be lost. Still... Robin had ordered a squad of pegasus riders away from battle. If the battle turned south, he would be forced to steal a page from Einherjar Eirika's book and attempt an aerial escape.

This plan soon turned to a serious consideration instead of a mere conception, as the brunt of the Skaven army reached the remaining forces Kent and Sain had put together. The rest of the surviving mages and archers were perched on the roofs, already at work throwing their all at the ocean of fur beneath them.

But for all their efforts, the Soldiers could not hold their ground against the Rat-Men. Soon after their battle began, the Rat-Men's sheer amount of numbers was already well on the way to wearing down Sain and Kent's men. Robing could not, should not, stay in this city. He had to get the information he had gathered today at Ysstol. Perhaps with more men, and more efficient Einherjar, maybe even the Shepherds as well, he could achieve victory. He shook off a creeping thought from his mind that made him consider staying, lest he act like some of his past foes and flee like a coward.

Robin signaled for his guard to accompany him, as well as the Einherjar of Lyn, to the basement of the castle palace where an escape tunnel had been constructed many years ago, leaving the command room that Robin had set up in the Lord of the city's quarters, and walking through the halls of the palace. Samsooth had come a long way in the past 2,000 years since Marth had begun his war against the Shadow Dragon in the vicinity, and as such, the palace, while not overtly lavish, had quite some splendor to its name. The halls were large and vacuous, and the grounds were relatively defend-able, for the moment.

Eventually, Robin and his entourage reached the final descent at the back of the palace. But the final stars were on the other side of a rooftop courtyard, which was currently the host to a fierce battle between the few final surviving Pegasus knights, Palace guards, and the cavaliers Robin had ordered to stay back, against a small group of twenty-something assassin-rats. Bodies of both sides littered the floor, but the largest piles of Pegasus rider bodies, as well as a fair amount of Palace guard corpses, were around the infamous Rat-Lort, Queek Headtaker, who lead this offensive effort to decimate the Palace defenses from the inside.

Robin and his men froze in their tracks at the sight before them, the Tactician nearly dropping the Elthunder tome he had been carrying as he racked his mind attempting to find an alternate route of escape. As it was, his men would have had trouble just against the rat-assassins. There was little reason to believe the addition of the Rat-Lord would do anything but tip circumstances heavily against him.

Just as Robin was about to call for a retreat, a contingent of rat-men charged at him, leaving their dash for a trio of Pegasus riders who took the opportunity to shake off the rats around them, and finally get atop their Pegasi and into the air. The sword-masters who had been accompanying Robin unsheathed their swords and rushed at the rat-men, dodging their blades and finding purchase in their openings, killing the rats and then proceeding to aid their comrades in warding off the rest of the beasts.

If the tactician had to guess, he'd assume that the battle had been going on for a while and whoever the Riders had sent had probably been sidetracked or intercepted before reaching help save for the few Palace guards who had heard the commotion and attempted to help. Any further thoughts evaportated from his mind when he saw the rat-lord Queek begin to move towards him, wielding Durandal in one hand, and Armads in the other, the holy weapons slightly shining brightly in protest to the beast that held them.

Before Robin could even reach for his tome, Lyn had already leapt at Queek, using her sword, the Mani Katti to start off. The long haired Sacaen had tried to end the fight early by moving quickly and going for his neck, but Queek's defenses had held, and he caught the blade mid-air, even though Lyn had nearly gone at speeds faster than Robin could even observe.

As Robin stood frozen in place and wondering wheter to step in or not, Lyn's voice interrupted his thoughts, "Get on a horse and go!" cried the Einherjar as she blocked a blade strike from Queek, the day's battles having seemingly done nothing to wear him down. Robin ran to the waiting cavaliers, throwing an Elthunder at an approaching rat before getting on his mount and turning back to Lyn, who, even though she suffered a gash through her belly did not stop attacking Queek.

"Do not think your actions today brand you a coward! I know you are the same Tactician I traveled with so long ago," she said as she narrowly dodged a downward strike from Armads that shook the ground around where it hit and backed away, her fixation with seeing the tactician off distracting her from her battle, where she was already outclassed as it was. But the moment Robin faded from view into the tunnels beneath the mountains, she turned to Queek and attacked with vigor. Lyn's speed had always been greater than Hector's, and her agility surpassed Eliwoods by bounds, and she used every advantage in her playbook in this battle. She feinted and parried Queek's attacks as best she could, and even got in some decent hits on the rat-man, but alas, her strike was weaker than Hector's had been, and the Mani Katti did little to the Rat whenever it did not strike a vital area, dooming Lyn to tiring herself by throwing herself as a lone bee would against a badger.

While the fabled Mani Katti was by no means a common sword, it was not long before its blows against both Armads and Durandal made it snap in two mid block, bringing one of Durandal's thrusts through Lyn's right clavicle, spurting out through her back and snapping it. She roared with pain and dropped the handle of the Mani Katti. Queek then withdrew his blade and then brought Armads down on where her form had been an instant earlier, but she had dodged the blow and taken a step backwards, unsheathing her other sword, the Sol Katti, and brought it up in a forward swing that the Rat dodged, and returned with a stab of his own. Lyn feinted to the opposite side to bait Queek into dropping Armads on her, and slide around it, costing through the smooth floor of the courtyard, and catching Queek on his blindspot, proceeding to cut at his back for about seven seconds before Queek knocked her aside with his tail and roared ferociously.

Lyn was sent flying by the blow and hit the floor hard, laying there for a brief instant before getting on her feet again and charging the rat. She knew that if she stayed immobile it would be the death of her, and so she jumped into the air and began to run as soon as she landed after poising to get a better angle of attack. The Blade-Lord moved so quickly, that it appeared as if it were seven of her attacking at the same time, before she landed on Queek and slashed his chest, cutting through his warp armor and the flesh underneath, but unfortunately causing little true damage. Queek was furious and dropped both of his weapons, grabbing Lyn by the shoulders and dashing her against the ground. Her face was bloodied by this and her nose was shattered. Queek then threw her to the ground, where her head bounced from the impact, sending her senses blazing, and then stepped furiously on it once, twice, thrice. Every time he did so sent a jolt of pain into Lyn, and brought her closer to blacking out. She felt her head might split open. If he did it again, she would not survive, she thought. And so she desperately grabbed for the Sol Katti that had been dropped an elbow's length away, and brought it up to his stomach, making it jut out of his back as he had raised his foot for the fourth time.

Queek roared in pain and confusion, before reaching and sliding the blade from his body. While he did so, Lyn grabbed Durandal and took the chance to aim for his head with a stab. However the weight of the blade was too much for Lyn, and Queek was able to block the blow, toss the sword aside using the Sol Katti, and then proceed to stab Lyn in the neck with it. Her various wounds having made her too weak to dodge this final blow.

As Lyn lay dying, very different thoughts ran through both her and Queek's minds amidst the sounds of battle around them. As the last of the pegasus riders of Samsooth were slaughtered, Lyn's final thoughts drifted to her Master Tactician, and wondered if he could truly stop the Rat-horde. Queek thought about where in his trophy rack he would put this particular trophy, as the rack had been sorely lacking in trophies from this new world ever since his arrival before this day...

End of Chapter 3.


	4. The Reclamation of Altea (Lucina Part 1)

Lucina's Offensive

Battle in the North-Eastern Ylissean Plains (Part 1)

Commanding Lord(s): Lucina (Ylisse) VS Ikit Claw (Skaven)

In the days that followed the fall of Samsooth, the Rat-Man horde in Ylisse spread through the northern mountains of the country like a plague. Time dragged on in this manner, with the Skaven invading and desecrating more and more once-great cities with their vile prescence, and the countries to the south retreating further and further away in fear. The Skaven, having no real resistence to their actions, began taking the time to exterminate and enslave the populaces at a relaxed paced after it became clear that no help would arrive for the people of Northen Ylisse still in their cities. It seemed as if the vermin would soon overrun the tnire continent, but after the mountains in northern Ylisse were conquered, the Rat-Men's progression stopped for the time being, and little was known of their activities for a good two months save for raiding parties on cities near to the mounntains, though these were slain or driven off viciously.

King Chrom bore the weight of the many, many lives lost during his short reign. A number much greater than any of his father's wars, as well as all of his previous wars. The sheer weight of his guilt caused him to begin losing his youthful stride and courage. Instead of leading his soldiers to battle, as he would have done in years past, he preferred to spend the silence of peace building ever more magnificent strongholds more and more to the south, and preparing to evacuate the rest of northern Ylisse in the hopes that doing so would appease the invaders. The Skaven ignored this offer, no doubt seeing it as a show of weakness, and instead began to march upon Plegia, setting their sights on what was once Altea. Few members of both the Plegian and the Ylissean aristocracy and military had objections to their rulers' decision to let the Rat-Men have it.

But Lucina, the time displaced princess of Ylisse, had no intention of laying by and losing the world she had fought so hard to preserve, and so she urged her father to allow her to intercept the forward force that the Skaven had sent out to the Plegian borders, and to grant her any fragment of the Ylissean army he could to aid her in this task. She now rode towards what was once the Altean capital, planning to liberate it, as the Skaven amassed outside of the abandoned city. The Skaven were rumoured to be planning to use it as a place from which to launch their invasion of Plegia and loot its many treasures. From scout's reports, Lucina also came to know that they had sent out the brunt of their army, ready to meet her in the plains of what was once Gra's countryside to stop her advance, even as their compatriots in Altea itself, hoped to establish defences should the battle at Gra end badly, and force their kin to retreat to what was once the Hero-King's home.

The Skaven (as they called themselves according to accounts of escaped slaves) that had taken the already evacuated city were led by a beast made of flesh and steel who was now leading an army of creatures both like him, half steel and half flesh, as well as simple rats, who were purely flesh and blood. Though this rat-thing, Ikit Claw, would not lead the battle against Lucina, he would no doubt be prepared for her arrival with machine, contraption, and blade ready to end her efforts.

On the subject of the rat-thing's contraptions, as it was a subject that had confounded the Ylisseans most of all about the,, was their unprecedented developments in technology. Now this was because, as the residents of Ylisse eventually pieced together, in the early days after the Skaven's arrival in Ylisse, they had arrived into the bitter climate of Ferox, with little in the way of food and shelter. Because of this, they first encounters both against the quickly decimated Feroxi armies, as well as against the Ylisseans, were more desperate lunges for survival than true invasion. But as time went on, and when they marched upon the mountains in northern Ylisse, they had already begun to regain their true strength. And by the time they had taken Samsooth City, they had already begun to plot against each other, as the prominent figures amongst them began rising in power once more. The leader of the Skaven seeking to occupy Altea was Ikit Claw, who was seeking to hold a foothold for Clan Skyre from which to conquer Plegia, as theYlisseans had already been bullied into compliance, and what had once been Gra having turned since ancient times into a barren desert.

Lucina rode at the head of her army, on her left side rode her friend and advisor, Tiki, who had grown closer to her after the war against Grima, and who had taken a fiery interest in protecting Altea. On her right side rode sir Frederick, who had once been her father's steward, but after Chrom's ascencion to the throne and subsequent fall from grace through the Skaven fiasco, now served Lucina. Robin the tactician was not accompanying the entourage, as after he had fled from Samsooth, he had taken the Einherjar of the heroes of Jugdral and began to engage the Skaven in guerilla warfare both underground and on the surface, causing great chaos for the Skaven and diverting their attention from expansion into Ylisse, as well as their increasing infighting.

Lucina looked at the horizon from atop her horse. What had been a pleasant view in past few weeks of hastened travel was now a bleak sight. The countryside of Plegia that was before them looked to be prepared to run red with the blood of both man and monster as the overwhelming rat-man horde began to emerge from the horizon. The princess was tired from the harsh march that had brough her to this spot, and began to have second thoughts about the battle ahead. She began to dread what was to come, even though the Skaven were still far enough away to be mere specks in her field of view.

Frederick, almost as if sensing her worry, spoke to her, "Your highness, is everything well? If you wish to move to the back of the army, no one will hold it against you. The aim of this fight is not glory, but victory. For that we must assure your survival before all else."

"All is fine, Frederick." said Lucina. "I just... need your appraisal on this battle. Do you think we will win?"

"My lady, you've the best soldiers Ylisse has to offer on your side, you fight under the conditions you chose, and you've the Voice of Naga at your side. Rest assured. We will win."

"Speaking of," mused Lucina, turning to Tiki. "I don't suppose we can expect to receive Naga's blessing before this battle? To be honest, the divine dragon's silence during this ordeal has many people worried, Tiki. Why is Naga absent in this time of tribulations."

The green haired Manakete, who had been half-asleep on her saddle, woke up in attention, and took a moment to process what had been asked to her. But when she regained her composure, she turned to Lucina and said, "It worries me too, Lucina. But even I cannot speak to her as of late. Whenever I have tried, I only feel claws, roars and sounds of battle. It seems as if there is a war in the very heavens. If I lose my grip on my self to the surge of emotions, I think can make out an image. A horned rat, fighting Naga with tooth, claw, and divine will. It is a struggle this world has not seen since the days of Loptyr."

"Well then. It's a good thing we at least have her support in this. If she herself is embroiled in struggle, then it can only mean that our victory is entwined with hers. Let us not lose this battle." said Lucina, as she looked to the distance. The Rat-Men had broken rank and began to march instead towards the Ylissean army. Some of the soldiers around Lucina began to shift uncomfortably in place.

"I concur." said Frederick, as he looked at the now approaching Skaven horde seeking any weakness amongst their rank, so as to get a better handle on whether he would survive the battle. Content with his chances, he said, "Your highness, the enemy is fast approaching. Is now a good time to assemble the troops into formation?"

"Of course, give the command." said Lucina, moving with her entourage to the spot from where she would oversee the charge against the Skaven. Though the princess was no doubt a brace one, she had also spent most of her military career facing off against the Risen, and came to know how to not only fight against them herself, but from the many failures she had witnessed growing up, she learned how to lead troops against them. And she saw little difference in the tactics of the Risen and of the Skaven. This did not mean she planned to not partake in the battle at all, far from it, but she would be leading the relief forces and attacking from the side with the rest of the cavalry, allowing the infantrymen to receive both the glory, and the danger, of battle head on.

Leaving command of the main infantry, a force consisting of conscripted lance-wielding soldiers, mages and knights, to Frederick. She departed with her horsemen to the west, in the hopes of reaching a distance from which they would be able to charge effectively. The rest of the Ylissean forces spread out amongst the infantry consisted of what survived of the clergy after many of their numbers waged covert war against the Skaven with the aim of liberating the slaves under them, what few mercenaries had not already sold themselves to the Skaven, and the last dregs of the Ylissean Pegasus Knights, whose herculean work in reconaissance proved invaluable to the war effort, but also lead to their order being the one with the most casualties so far. Because although their numbers had already been bolstered by Griffon Riders, and Tiki and Nah as well, the age of the Pegasus Knight's hegemony across the skies as soldiers was soon coming to an end. And last, but certainly not least, was the implementation of a technology that had once been thought lost in Ylissem and that had only been used in years long past, when the continent was known as Archanea. The ballista of the elder times had been put back into use, and with the aid of Miriel the Court Magician, they packed a much different punch than before.

Though the Ylissean army seemed motley, as it had been cobbled together from wherever King Chrom and Robin had managed to squeeze out available troops, it was still a large force numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. This was to be the first fight in which Rat and Man would fight with an equal amount of numbers.

After a good half hour of marching towards each other, the Ylissean forces shifting and shuffling regiments and formations, the armies were finally at charging range. Although the Skaven had made no effort to form ranks, there still seemed to be a purpose in their stances. One could see that even in their bare bones tactics, it was the smallest, most disposable rats who were the first charging hungrily at the Ylissean forces.

While Lucina led the cavalry into position, it was up to Frederick and his guard to spearhead the charge against the Skaven. The stories of the rat's deeds had struck a chord in Ylisse, fear, dread and confusion dominated whatever conversation turned to the subject of these invaders. But as Frederick stood amongst his country men and turned to see the men around him, he was awed by the firmness with which they stood, sizing up the enemy and gripping their arms with bloodthirsty hands. It seemed seeing the enemy up-close in its vile decadence made the men annoyed, no, ENRAGED, that these vile beasts had taken their homes and the lives of family and friends. Frederick, who had dismounted after leaving Lucina's side gripped his lance, raised his pavise and began to run forward. The spirit of the Ylissean men was already alight. Sullying the moment with an attempt at a rally would have to wait, for doing it at that moment would be a waste.

Both man and skaven ran at each other, bellowing their respective battle cries before crashing mid-field, the Ylissean formation and spears keeping them at a comfortable distance away from the Skaven. But this did not last, for as soon as the first wave of Skaven was beaten down, another took its place near instantly, jumping over the spears separating the two armies and beginning to strike at the ranks of Ylissean troops, as they had long ago learned how to face off against formations like these. It was in this chaos of savagery that the first glimpses of the larger Skaven, the Stormfiends, began to be heard. The sound of those beasts would have brought fear to the Ylissean soldiers, but they were too preoccupied by their battle with the smaller Skaven to see the looming figures.

But try as they might to ignore the inevitable, it was not long before the reality of their situation reared its godforsaken, ravenous, disgusting head, and the enormous armoured rats charged at the Ylissean lines, cutting through both ally and foe in a bid to claim blood and Ylissean lives.

The men of Ylisse had seen many beasts in their lives, and most present had fought against Grima and the Risen during the wars against Plegia. But they were little prepared for the reality of the enormous rats tearing through them, seemingly immune to spear and sword that clashed against them. This predicament would have made the soldiers despair, but their worries were burned away by the mages accompanying them, who had a much moreproactive role in battle than they ever had before in the battles against the Skaven, as in previous battles they had fought defensively, now, they fought viciously and outwardly, letting loose flurries of Elthunders and Arcfires, burning through Skaven at speeds and with an ease that was not present for the Rat-Men before. This onslaught caught them by surprise, as they had not brought many grey-seers along with them, but it did force them to start working towarads bringing their Doomwheels closer to the front lines, doing so by forcing a charge by both their weaker and stronger units attacking all at once in a desperate attempt at keeping the Ylissean soldiers at bay and bringing their better weapons to the front.

This plan would have worked, as at that moemnt in time, the warriors and soldiers in the front line were hard pressed to hold back the attack of the enormous armoured rats from their mage comrades, only keeping in one piece against the myriad amounts of strikes through sheer force of will and promptu healing from the War Monks. As it stood, the doomflayers and doomwheels would have destroyed the Ylissean lines, but it was at that moment that the pegasus knights descended from the heavens, led by Sumia and her future-daughter, Cynthia. With tome and javelin in hand, the Pegasus Riders, Dark Riders, and Griffin Riders flew down from the heavens, from where they had been throwing potshots and concentrated fire, and insteadlet loose their ordinance over the Skaven's war machines as they flew in a near vertical line from the direction of the sun with such speed and precision, that it was not until after they had finished their descent and began to fly over the Skaven's war machines that the beasts began to fire their rifles and arrows at them. But even then, the riders flew with such speed and tenacity, that it caused the Skaven to have difficulty killing the riders, which made the Ylisseans lose only the slowest of their flyers. Though that was a lower number than Sumia had first predicted upon leading the charge, she was horrified to see upon the flyer's retreat back further into the sky that very few Griffon Riders were still among the flyer's numbers, as many had perished through the attack.

Thankfully, the sacrifice of those soldiers made all the difference for the Ylisseans, because although the Skaven's war machines still made their way to the front, the delay of their arrival allowed skilled warriors like Vaike and Gregor to lead their comrades in avoiding the worst of their wrath, if only for the best amongst them. But nevertheless, the damage wrought by the machines and stormfiends was too much for the Ylissean lines to hold, and their formation began to break. These woes came to a head when the rest of the skaven force, the smaller skaven wielding warpcannons and swords began to run over the piles of corpses that littered the front lines and into the Ylissean's lines. From the perspective of the Pegasus Knights above, it was as if there was a mound of man and rat, with the rats enroaching the human defenders who were only being held together by grit, spit, and the desperate healing efforts of their allies. The mages fared little better, as many of their tomes were beginning to run out, leaving them as little more than burdens on the time, many of them would begin to retreat, allowing for more infantrymen and monks to make their way to the front line, extending what was effectively a stalemate.

This would have continued, as more and more fighters on both sides dropped dead by the hundreds, but from the west came relief for the Ylisseans. Led by Lucina, whose face beared a fire unseen by this earth in the past two thousand years, the cavalrymen and knights charged at the exposed side of the Skaven's army. They cut through even the largest stormfiends and the odd gutter-runners who had hidden amongst the Skaven ranks. Lucina's blade glowed and was a beacon of light for her allies to rally around as they carved a path through the lesser Skaven, it was as if their Princess's audacity gave the men who followed her strength. Eventually, Lucina reached the front lines of the conflict and broke the western section of the Skaven's line, allowing her countrymen to charge forward, unabated by the inhumane prowess their Princess had just preformed. It seemed that she rode with Naga's direct favor. The fact she had a large dragon burning through the thicker parts of her path and bearing the brunt of the attacks directed at her was also helpful. Which brought her to the next step in her strategy, which was attempting to find a healer to put a badly wounded Tiki back in fighitng shape, as the charge she had carried out had caused her to have multiple bullet holes, warpcannon burns, and arrows lodged into her. Thankfully, the War-monks had not been wiped away by the vermintide, and so, did not waste a moment saving the Voice's life and easing her wounds, even as the Ylissean men around them moved back and ceded ground so as to regroup and better strike at the Skaven, whose shoddy attempts at formations were already beginning to falter.

Lucina slid off of her horse after clearing the area of battle, the firm battle lines of the Ylisseans giving just enough space for her to get through, and then immediately casting out the Skaven that had tried to follow her. Returning amongst her lines, she gave the order for the flyers to descend from the sky, as during her observations from the distance before her charge, she had seen that Skaven snipers had taken to shooting the Ylissean Flyers out of the sky.

After a good few minutes passed, she sought out her friend, Severa, in the skies, as she had taken the role of auxilliary flyer for this battle. Though Lucina looked flustered from her rush through the enemy lines, she was elated, for by her own blade and steed she had seen first-hand that the beasts bled just like anything else. This rose Lucina's spirits, as it had seemingly done so for those of the rest of the men in the army. Of course, this feeling would not last for much longer. As she saw the Riders descend from the heavens, Lucina's heart dropped when she saw the state many of her soldiers were in.

Many of the riders who arrived from the charge were wounded, the bullets from the keen-eyed Skaven tearing through their thin armor and shredding the bodies beneath them. Sumia's gambit to stop the advance of the Skaven's terrible machines had come at a cost. And Lucina saw it at its worst when she saw an unconsolable Sumia, surrounded by her gaunt, visibly shaken comrades trying to help her maintain her composure, she grew worried, as she could not see her daughter anywhere. Deciding to avoid facing what would no doubt break her emotionally, Lucina tried to distract her mind with other matters. Desperately trying to avoid being forced to face the reality of the situation. She was not in any rush to contemplate her own mortality, specially in the wake of the loss of one of her compatriots from the future-past.

Lucina was still attempting to gauge the damage that her flying comrades had received, and contemplated sending them out again. But she had difficulty focusing, as the frantic sounds of battle sounded less than fifty feet from where she stood. Lucina was beginning to approach a badly burned, agonizing Wyvern Knight whose large, gaping wounds had cauterized in the style that the Rat-Men's green cannons often did, but she was approached by Tiki before she began to walk towards the dying soldier.

"Lucina, do not let the losses your forces have suffered so far dissuade you from battle. Your men need you more than ever now." said the green haired Manakete, as she stopped Lucina in her tracks.

"But what can I do at this point? Even if we achieve victory today, it will have been our only victory, and won at a terrible cost. "

It was then that a fire began to burn brilliantly in Tiki's eyes. Within them burned a longing for love long gone, and battles fought and won in the far past. She stepped forward and spoke, "By your actions here today, you have already become the heart and soul of your nation, the star and savior of your people. Go on and lead them to glory in battle. Lead them to victory, for if you falter now and lose yourself to despair, then your country will fall, and the deaths and suffering before you have witnessed thus far will have been for nothing."

"And what of my father, then?" asked Lucina, as around her and Tiki, the flyers began to take wing once again, leaving their dead where they had fallen, and their wounded to be tended to by the clerics present. Lucina, however, was unaware of this, as she was too distracted by her and Tiki's words. "Surely he carries more weight than I do. He is the king. It was by his actions that Grima was defeated. If anyone will lead Ylisse to victory, it will be him."

"I never saw your father like I see you today. Though comrades gave their lives for him countless times. I do not think he ever spared a thought for those who served him like you do. If he had his way, your countrymen that are pushing back the Rat-Men today would still be holding the few parts of their country not ceded to the Rats, cowering behind the spirits of warriors of the past. Rest assured Lucina. Even if you fall today, you will have done much to inspire your people to take up arms against the invaders."

Lucina smiled then. First a half-smirk, and then a full grin. She reached for her sword and drew it saying, "Then what are we waiting for? Our path from here is clear."

Then Lucina, followed closely by Tiki, mounted her horse, signalled her guard, and rid to where one of her guard said he had heard Frederick had last been seen. Before long, and taking care not to get in the way of a squad of archers that had begun to fire from the outskirts of the battle, they arrived at Frederick's position. They found the Great Knight kneeling on the ground, leaning against his sword as he breathed heavily. It was aparrent that he had come to rest from the heat of battle, having a few moments before successfully pushed the third wave of Stormfiends away with his comrades, along with the aid of Tharja, Henry and their division of sages.

"Frederick! It is good to see you're well" said Lucina as she arrived. "How fares the battle? Did my charge do any good?"

Frederick nodded his head towards Lucina and said ecstaticly. "You have done splendidly, milady. Though a less knowledgeable man would call your actions crude and ineffective, I consider them to have been effective. Your actions allowed us to drive back the larger beasts and cripple the advance of the smaller ones." he then stood, and said with a more somber tone, "But our losses have been great. We've lost a lot of good people today. Our war-monks have taken the worst of it. By healing our soldiers on the front lines to the best of their impressive abilities, they became the biggest targets for the rats after the flyers retreated. I do not think we will have as much diversity of orders in our church if this war continues for much longer."

"I understand," said Lucina. Her eyes began to water, if ever so slightly. In her time, Grima's crusade, inquisition and subsequent eradication of the Ylissean church had been the cause of many terrible stories. Many of the most nostalgic tales of the future-past told of the beauty of Naga's churches and hymns. She did not wish for that to happen in this time, which she and her father had fought so hard to preserve. "But will we lose?"

It was at that moment that Frederick's face lightened up, and he said with determination. "Not at all. Our latest advance has surely scared the rats in charge. I am surprised. We did not see the assassins, machines and monstrosities Robin's reports warned us of. We must have struck at an opportune time. They must have known this all along, but now we know too."

"And why is that?" asked Lucina.

"Because if what the white haired sorceror's crows tell me is true, then we have the upper hand. Our enemy is retreating."

Lucina let out a hearty laugh then, and held her sword high once again. And once again the sunlight glimmered against it and ran down the length of her sword. "Then we charge! I shall be at the head of the formation if need be, but we cannot allow our opponents to retreat today. We will not let them reach Altea!"

End of Part 1.


	5. The Reclamation of Altea Pt2: The Wall

Lucina's Offensive

Battle in the ruins of Altea (Part 2)

Commanding Lord(s): Lucina (Ylisse) VS Ikit Claw (Skaven)

When Lucina had finally reached the area of Plegia that had once been Altea after a month's worth of marching, she nearly broke down in despair upon taking note of her predicament. Every town that they passed through was abandoned, pillaged, or both. Every house was a grave. It was during this march through the Plegian countryside that Lucina truly saw the horrors that the Skaven could inflict. Wells filled with decaying bodies, and the floors of the ramshackle, ashen remains of houses dug up in attempts to get at whatever riches the inhabitants could have hidden away in life. While such savagery was not completely alien to Lucina and her troops, seeing the same scene in every town, village, and city they chanced upon came close to breaking their already weary spirits.

And if their trek was not hard enough of them as it was, the mere act of crossing their recently reconquered territory was a nightmare. Her army could barely rest without getting assaulted almost nightly by gutter runners and mercenary assassins. Every kilometer they took brought with it another band of roving Skaven to put down, or another group of mercenaries sent to hinder them further. As their aerial support began to dwindle more and more with each passing skirmish, Skaven war-balloons started to appear before them in droves, dropping vials of poison and disease on the Ylissean forces with precious few flyers available to fight them off.

But the Skaven had not yet completely conquered the country, the recently enslaved people still had fire within them, and some mercenaries still had some sense in their heads. Every time Lucina's army encountered a pack of Skaven, they annihilated them. When they encountered slaver Skaven, they liberated the slaves and armed them. And Lucina found much luck in turning the mercenaries hired by the Skaven to attack her, to instead join her cause, reasoning with them that all they were doing by fighting her was staving off their own doom at best, and rushing towards it at worst.

Because of all these efforts, Lucina's forces not only held during the campaign through Plegian Altea, they grew, taking in all sorts of miscreants and mercenaries. Wyvern riders and sorcerers replaced the sorely missing rank and file Pegasus Riders and Mages of the Ylissean army. Mercenary swordsmen and Berserkers helped ease the burden of Soldiers and Warriors on the front line.

Although the army had not come across anything larger than small raiding parties, Lucina was certain that her forces could retake the capital of Altea, where the rats set up their stronghold and hurried to set up defenses with renewed vigor after hearing of the Princess's exploits.

Though she herself was not an accomplished tactician, she held the histories and tales of the lords of old and of myth to her heart. Marth, Seliph, Roy and Ike had no need of tacticians or grand strategists to make plans for them. Military strategy was an art royals such as her were taught from birth, even if she was born into one of the bloodiest wars in her nation's history, so why should she rely on a tactician to tell her how to retake a city? Besides, even if the situation turned dire, she still had an ace up her sleeve. Or rather, an entire playing deck stored in a rather uncomfortable pouch on her hip.

When Lucina's army reached the outskirts of the city of Altea, the general consensus that Lucina could gather from her men was disgusted by what they had seen so far. Trash and bodies littered the streets, and already smaller Ratmen retreated from the army's approach and ran towards the inner city.

"I take it they'll know we're coming." said Lucina to Frederick, who was riding to her left. She was surprised to see some humans still roaming the filthy streets, they wore no shoes for the most part, their feet were caked black with grime, their clothes were spotted with mud and sweat, and their hair seemed to take on novel forms with the amount of filth collected in it. "I did not imagine so many people would be left behind. The reports the Plegians gave us said they orchestrated a complete evacuation. Who are these people?"

"Looters mostly, I'd suppose. Although I'd imagine not everyone was willing to leave their ancestral homes. Plegians have always been prideful" Frederick said, as he scanned the area, looking for signs of the Skaven but finding instead corpses. Both stiff and moving ones. "A virtue that is unbefitting of them."

"There were also many who simply may not have had the means to leave at all," said Tiki, the Divine Dragon who rode at Lucina's right. "Don't be so quick to speak ill of the Plegians, for I knew them once as Archaneans, and fought alongside them willingly and eagerly."

"Well now they're Plegians, and I've seen far too many friends die in war against them to spare any excess sympathy." Responded Frederick, looking worried as he noticed that no Skaven seemed to have remained in the outer layers of the city. He dreaded the possibility of a siege, as the sounds of hundreds of matted feet could be heard rushing to the inner city walls over the groans and wails of a dying city.

"I lost loved ones to Grima too, Frederick. More than I would prefer to count. But that is no reason to hate the Plegians." Said Lucina. "If we survive this war, we must donate any gold we can spare to the rebuilding of Plegia. Grima's return, as well as Gangrel's first reign, were all a direct consequence of the unnecessary hostility between our nations. Now hurry your pace, Frederick, we're falling behind the main army. If we are to lay siege to the inner city wall I want to oversee our catapult placements. If we end up having to protect the men who will be setting those up I'll personally get on a Pegasus and lead the charge against the walls to cover them."

"Do we even have any riders left, Frederick?" Asked Tiki, already grabbing hold of her Drsgonstone as they neared the inner city gate, a 50 foot imposing stone structure that only opened at select intervals to reveal glowing green Rat Men contraptions that were being hastily set up by the new inhabitants.. "Lucina may have to grab a Wyvern instead."

"We still have a couple of platoons, and I recall Lady Cynthia's Pegasus managed to return, even if it was without its rider. Although Sumia has latched onto it, I am sure she can lend it to you." Said Frederick. "Now, let's not stand out in the open. I do not want to be present when we see what these Skaven can do on the defense."

No sooner had he said that, then the Rat-men's contraptions started blasting green globs of what Lucina could only see as solid fire at the catapults, hitting them and the poor men who were trying to set them up. The ordinance burned through the wood like water through parchment, and the men were burned to cinders in seconds. Their faces contorted in agonizing pains as they crumbled to the ground.

Lucina was stunned, but only for a moment. Her instinct as a monarch told her to fear for the loss of her army's morale more that of her own life. So she threw herself off of her horse and hollered for a pegasus, a wyvern, anything with wings dammit!

After a tense two minutes seeing her comrades get pelted by green fire, plus the additional rifle bullets, she was granted a large Wyvern named Miledy that was of the best stock the Plegian mercenaries had to offer. She got on, raised her holy blade Falchion out of its sheath, and rose to the heavens alongside mercenaries and bandits riding on Wyverns, and what remained of Ylisse's Pegasus and Falcon Knights.

Saying that their ascent was difficult would be an understatement. Dozens of the riders were blasted out of the sky by bullets, their thin armor doing nothing to stop the bullets from tearing apart rider and steed alike. The luckier ones would be hit by the green fire, and would be reduced to ash before they even neared the ground.

Just as Lucina and her flying troops cleared the edge of the wall, odd dark smoke sprang up from the Skaven's positions.

The smoke spread across the sky, and began to blot out the afternoon sun in seconds. A few wyvern riders became distracted by this and were pulled off their steeds and torn limb from limb when they arrived distracted to the wall.

Lucina hit the ground running, signalling her steed to return to the ground while bringing her blade down on her first ratman of the day. She cleaved a dark brown furred rat across the snout, and then followed it up with a stab through the throat. The Rat Man died where he stood, but there were still dozens on the wall. Lucina saw that the riders that had taken off after the first wave had a lot of trouble getting on the wall at all.

The Skaven had set up traps for the human's arrival with a vile cunning that Lucina had no intention of respecting.

In the darkness of the Rat Men's forced night, the riders going to the wall had little light to maneuver in, and were duped by the Skaven's positioning to land in inconvenient spaces. Some landed on the pot holes that fell to emptiness that the Skaven had set up. Others landed isolated from Lucina's makeshift position, and were torn to pieces by hungry monsters.

The men who fought around Lucina had much more luck though, as they managed to rally around her, cutting down the already fleeing rat-men and making a defensive circle around her. One they had carved a defensive formation around Lucina, they set to work fighting off the Skaven on the top of the wall. Dozens of Skaven threw themselves at the humans, and many managed to take advantage of the Ylissean's tiredness from their days of marching. The Skaven's wiry strength that was no match for an able bodied man managed to overpower a few of Lucina's soldiers, but despite this, her lines held. Not 10 minutes passed before the Skaven started to notice the mounds of their dead around their brethren, and started to abandon the wall. Many rats who had been firing the warp cannons left them mid-fire, although most of the Skyre engineers on the top of the wall did not even manage to full retreat from their machines before Lucina's men made a beeline for them, tearing them apart in a flurry of fur and gore.

Lucina was content that the charge had actually worked. Her recent battles in Plegia did wonders for her confidence, reclaiming Altea did not seem like a fool's dream any longer. But now was no time to rest on her laurels, if the taking of this wall was to be any useful, she'd had to kill as many of the rat-men who manned the cannons as possible. Although of course, she also needed the gates opened, and seeing many of the rats heading inside the guard tower that led to the gate controls was not an attractive sight. Thankfully, she saw a familiar face amongst the soldiers cleaning up the last skaven on the wall.

"Gerome!" yelled Lucina, calling to the masked man who had been amongst the first to leap off his steed and into the wall. Aside from a multitude of scratch marks on his armor, he seemed to be fine. Lucina was thankful not to see any wounds on her friend. Because she had noticed that many wounds that the Skaven cause, or rather, damn near EVERY wound that the Skaven caused, had a tendency to invite infection and decay within days if the wounded did not receive immediate attention from a cleric, which were starting to get worryingly rare in Lucina's force.

"Hey!" called Gerome, "Lucina have you heard? It looks like the rats hate themselves more than they could ever hate us!" he said as gleeful as Lucina had ever seen him.

"What?"

Gerome stepped closer to Lucina and grabbed hold of her shoulder, called a sizable portion of the men atop the wall and started walking towards the main watchtower, while also keeping an eye on the doors that led to the floors below, even as the Ylisseans were preparing their forces to descend, many Skaven were already trying to return to the top seeking what was in their minds easy glory. "It seems the Rat-Beasts have begun to divide themselves into groups already. Most of the rats we forced downstairs have already been murdered by their own brethren, we heard their cries to be let out and obliged them, we didn't know they were being chased though. A clan "Ektrik" or something like that was on their heels. They're wearing metal armor and are where most of the green fire's coming from. They're already boasting about being able to wipe the humans on the top of the wall out. Normally, I'd disregard them, but some of their ringleaders had lightning batons that charred a couple of my berserkers to cinders in seconds. This… is a problem."

"Well no shit."

"No, I don't mean just because of how they're equipped. Rather, many of the other rats have taken refuge in the guard tower."

"Alright."

"And we'd have to send half a platoon to take that tower on a good day. That being without the Ektriks trying to hit us from behind." Gerome turned to the guard tower, the rats inside were already throwing stones from the windows. Damned vermin thought they were hot shit or something.

"I understand."

"And we can't take that Guard Tower without getting swarmed from behind." Gerome said, while pointing at the various doors that were already being worn down by the Clan Ektrik rats.

"Get to the point Gerome. You want to separate our forces?"

"Yes."

"Done, take two squads and clear out that Guard Tower. I'll need everyone else to help me retake the rest of the wall." Said Lucina, already giving out orders on how to deal with the massed rats in the doors.

"How will the men below know to come up to aid us?" asked Gerome. He seemed less than thrilled about the job he had been assigned.

"Frederick is a smart man, he'll figure it out." Said Lucina, already running to her men, who were in position.

Lucina would curse herself many times over for the rest of her life because of what she did next, as she did not process her plan as well as she should have. She absentmindedly said, "Open up the doors!" while still thinking up ways to position her men so as to avoid getting shocked by the Rat-men's weapons.

As soon as the doors opened, rat men came pouring out, their lightning sticks forcing her men into an immediate retreat, and killing multiple soldiers on the spot.

"SHIT" yelled Lucina as she rushed in to a particularly runny door to stop the rat men from gaining a foothold on the wall. She was about to bring her blade down on the stream of rat men, but she saw the lightning rod on one of the leading rats swing towards her, so she abandoned her attack and leapt back a step, narrowly dodging the stick. She used the leftover momentum on her sword to bring it across the rat-man's head, which was not covered by armor like the rest of his body. The rat died when, clutching its face, it struck itself with its own lightning stick. At first, the rats it led tried to reach for its weapon, but Lucina managed to strike down all who approached it. By the time Lucina's forces were able to push back the Skaven to where she was, the Ektriks she was fighting were already prepared to retreat.

She did not give them that chance. She caught the door they were pulling shut, and matched their wiry strength with her own. She not only caught the door, she pulled it open, dragging a ratman out, but she ignored it, bashing in the head of the one behind it with her sword. She then kicked at the group of rats and caused them to fall down the stairs on the other side of the stairs. She took a step back to take a breath, and saw that her men were in awe of what she just did. She just responded with, "Plug this hole, dammit!" and the wyvern riders already started running down the stairs to retake the wall. She heard the sounds of battle come up from downstairs and grinned. She sheathed Falchion and picked up the lightning staff that the leader-Skaven had dropped. Its short length and maneuverable weight would be much more useful down there than Falchion's long, heavy blade.

She walked away a bit from her men and inspected the weapon. It was rough, and would hardly be called a good-looking club had it been made of any other material. But this was made of copper, and she had seen its potential to burn men to cinders. Because of this she gripped the makeshift handle and turned to follow her men into the wall's interior. She saw some Pegasus riders who had left their steeds upon arriving at the wall trying to pry open the doors that the Skaven had pried shut. "Leave that as it is, you're not opening that and you're in a bad position if they do open it anyways." She gestured to a dozen of her men on the wall, "Stay here and make sure non escape, the rest of us will clear out this wall." Saying that she departed down dark maw of the wall's interior.

Once she arrived down there, she was greeted by the sight of her men fighting against the Skaven, trying to push to where their engineers were shooting their lightning cannons at her men below. She almost had to avert her gaze altogether from below, as her men were being torn apart by the Skaven, even while her men on the wall were already trying to ease their woes. Her transfixation with this sight almost kept her from joining the fray along with her men, but as soon as she heard the clatter of metal approach her she snapped out of her trance and looked to the battle before leaping forward.

She joined her men's offensive line with her thunder stick and brought it down on an armored rat-man, the stick burning his fur and flesh on the first blow, and emanating a thundering "crack" on the second one, causing it to crumple to the ground while small lightning crackled around his skull. The rats around him were scared by this sight, but still stayed to fight, confident that they would win this fight. Lucina was intent on discrediting this belief.

She did not needlessly overextend herself and rush ahead, as that would only serve to get her surrounded by the masses of rat-men. Neither could she let them edge in around the sides of her men's formation by ordering her men to fight defensively. To avoid both of these dangers, she applied a rhythmic flow to her approach in battle, she would make deliberate pushes against the rat men, and made sure to force them back to the doors that led further down, but she also tried to make sure she retreated one step for every two she took.

But Lucina made one fatal mistake, she overestimated the amount of soldiers she had, and the strength of their resolve.

Around her, she saw her soldiers fall under the stress of combat, making slight mistakes when facing the sly Skaven that cost them their lives. Before she was able to formulate another plan to counter this development, she was already beset by five inspired Ratmen.

As she was about to raise her weapon to defend herself, she felt a dagger pierce her gut, underneath the chest place she had taken to wearing after using a master seal to empower herself during the war against Walhart.

When she managed to stagger back and swing the weapon upwards, it barely phased the Rat Man and instead shattered when she hit its jaw.

Be it because of her gaping wound hindering her, or the fragility of her weapon, it did not matter, Lucina was forced to turn tail and fall back towards the top of the wall, leaving her fallen dead and dying soldiers behind so she could rally those living into a second charge. But she doubted she would be able to do so.

No matter how inspired they were, pegasus knights and Wyvern knights made for pitiful fighters when off of their steeds. The few soldiers they had brought with them were unable to turn the tide alongside them, and this left Lucina stranded, with the rest of her army below being torn apart by the Rat Men's green fire cannons.

When she arrived at the top the wall, she felt her wound worsen her worry upon seeing that only an odd 30 Ylissean souls remained alive with her.

As she approached them, preparing to give new orders while holding her wounded belly tenderly, she heard the telltale shrieks of men and rats and sounds of crashing metal coming from the guard tower that told her that at the least Gerome was holding himself together. This gave her strength enough to keep herself composed for that moment.

A gruesomely bloodied wyvern lord that had been a mercenary leader before being recruited came up to her and asked "Have you any orders, milady? The lads are getting scared by how the battle is going, some are asking for a full retreat from this accursed wall. Rumors are going around that Lord Gero-"

"Gerome is still kicking, soldier. So you should follow his example." Interrupted Lucina. "Since your soldiers are worried about his well-being, they should join him in his battle. We will make do without them in this position."

The mercenary sergeant nodded and called 4 other wyvern riders to follow him into the guard tower Gerome had entered. Lucina unsheathed her Falchion once again, and called for Lady Tiki to breathe fire into the doors leading into the lower levels of the wall, with the intent of stopping the Skaven's advance before they reached the roof of the wall.

Lucina knew she had little time before she succumbed to her wounds. She had experimented earlier and found that constant application of the Mend staff could stave off infection long enough to make recovery from Skaven inflicted wounds possible. But if she took too long to apply the treatment it would not be enough.

The princess of the halidom rallied her remaining soldiers to battle and said to them, "Warriors of Ylisse! If we can push the beats back two levels at the most we will stop their fire cannons long enough for our weapons to cripple them! We will move fast and force them to take the defensive! The tide of this war changes today, with your actions!"

Saying that, she ran through the doors and stairs to the floor below side stepping agonizing burned rats that had tried to assault her position, not knowing if any of her allies were at her side. When she got to the Skaven's position, her vision turned red and she charged forward with such ferocity their ranks broke before she had finished killing her third Rat Man.

Instead of wasting time being awe struck by the effect her ferocity had on the rats, she immediately took this chance to tear into them with even more gusto, causing even more fear and confusion than before, and making the rats begin to retreat. However Lucina still made mistakes due to the high she was in, and some rats aimed to take advantage of this.

When Lucina overextended and rushed forward to kick a rat that had dodged a sword swipe of hers, she left herself open from her knee to her neck, and turned to see the rat's sword about to stab into her neck. As she was about to clos her eyes accepting her death, she was surprised to see it get stopped by one of the soldiers who had accompanied her, he caught the sword with his own and throwing himself at the rat.

The rat at first tried to drive the sword into the man instead in surprise, but the Ylissean man was not to be trifled with. When the rat tried to wrap its tail around his legs to immobilize him, he took this chance to knee the rat in the groin, wrap his hands around him, and pull him to the ground before thrusting his pocketknife into the rat's neck multiple times.

In that moment Lucina knew her zeal was not something only she possessed in that moment. And so she pushed forward with even more strength. By the time Lucina's forces reached the end of this layer of the wall, she counted only 3 wounded and one dead in her number against dozens of dead rats laying around her troop.

This small victory did not get the better of her and her men, and they swiftly descended and continued their carnage. The rats in the next floor did not have a chance to avert their eyes from their cannons before having their heads removed from their bodies by the Ylliseans.

Lucina perked her head out of the murderhole and saw that many of her soldiers outside of the wall had taken to clearing out the buildings that made up the shantytown from which her army was assaulting the wall. Perhaps the casualty list of today would not be enough to dissuade her from going all the way and taking the castle after all...

Not long after she looked through the murderhole, she felt the ground shake and saw the men below charge forward through the gates of the city.

She felt elated for a moment, but dread filled her with pain in tandem with her gaping wound. She would not have long if she did not do something about that wound. But nearly all the healers she had taken with her down the wall were either dead or occupied. Inspiration came to her as she considered whether cauterizing herself with a torch was a good idea.

She felt Falchion tremble in her hands, and she could have sworn she heard it sing to her. She raised the blade in front of her as she charged against a larger rat that had 5 of her men lying dead around him and bellowed "I say when it ends!".

First she brought the blade forward with a jab into the Rat's exposed gut, right where her own wound was. Even as her blade brought the rat keeling over in pain, she felt her pain disappear. To solidify her blow, she followed her offensive with a slash under the armpit brought up by an upward swing as she dashed to the right of the rat. This killed the rat.

From that moment onward. The battle for the wall continued another two hours and ended when Lucina managed to make contact with the forces under Frederick's command. The clan of rats that had taken up residence in the wall was no more.

Lucina met up with Frederick as the last of the rats fell back around a weapons rack on the second floor of the wall. She greeted him with a tired wave, as she sheathed her sword.

"Well met, Frederick"

"It is good to see you well, milady." Said the Knight, not drooping the Lance he carried in his hands an inch. His armor remained spotless even as the room around him was stained with blood, grime, and rat droppings.

"Likewise." Lucina turned to see that the few remaining rat men had been routed. "Any news from the inside of the city? Should we be expecting hordes of Rat-Men like those in Samsooth?"

"Not to my knowledge." Said Frederick. "If I had to guess, I would say the brunt of their forces has retreated to the castle. Although I am certain the rats must have left some manner of traps behind to hinder us. As it stands I am none too thrilled to face another siege like this one. Our forces barely held together for this one."

"Well it's a good thing Gerome pulled through and opened the gates when he did then. My men were spread thin and about to break as well. Had we been forced to fight any longer without your assistance, our war would have ended near the top of the tower."

"Where is he anyways? I want to know how he managed to get through the rats up there in one piece."

As it turned out however, Gerome had had a difficult time driving the Skaven out of the tower. In his struggles to reach the gate mechanism, he and the men he had set out with fell in battle, Gerome did not die to the Skaven, but received multiple stab wounds, and lost an arm, a leg and an eye.

Thankfully, the additional men Lucina had sent to aid him arrived and made quick work of the Skaven who had been softened up by Gerome. Once their mission was complete they carried the wounded wyvern rider out and made sure to carry him to the back of the army so he could receive medical care.

Lucina was confident at this point. She had driven the rats into a corner, and though she knew very well about the potential of a cornered rat, she had no intention of allowing her opponents an opening with which to strike. She would not go through another siege against them, but rather, would beat them at their own game.

The tunnels underneath the castle were mythical for their role in the legend of the Hero-King, after all.


End file.
